Why do you stand far off, Yahweh? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
In arrogance, the wicked hunt down the weak. They are caught in the schemes that they devise.
For the wicked boasts of his heart’s cravings. He blesses the greedy and condemns Yahweh.
The wicked, in the pride of his face, has no room in his thoughts for God.
His ways are prosperous at all times. He is arrogant, and your laws are far from his sight. As for all his adversaries, he sneers at them.
He says in his heart, “I shall not be shaken. For generations I shall have no trouble.”
His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, and oppression. Under his tongue is mischief and iniquity.
He lies in wait near the villages. From ambushes, he murders the innocent. His eyes are secretly set against the helpless.
He lurks in secret as a lion in his ambush. He lies in wait to catch the helpless. He catches the helpless when he draws him in his net.
The helpless are crushed. They collapse. They fall under his strength.
He says in his heart, “God has forgotten. He hides his face. He will never see it.”
Arise, Yahweh! God, lift up your hand! Don’t forget the helpless.
Why does the wicked person condemn God, and say in his heart, “God won’t call me into account?”
But you do see trouble and grief. You consider it to take it into your hand. You help the victim and the fatherless.
Break the arm of the wicked. As for the evil man, seek out his wickedness until you find none.
Yahweh is King forever and ever! The nations will perish out of his land.
Yahweh, you have heard the desire of the humble. You will prepare their heart. You will cause your ear to hear,
to judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that man who is of the earth may terrify no more.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–18 1. Lord, why standest thou afar off? We here…
1. Lord, why standest thou afar off? We here see how the prophet, seeking a remedy for his calamities, which were apparently past hope, directly addresses himself to God at the very commencement. And the rule which we should observe, when we are in trouble and sorrow, is this: We should seek comfort and solace in the providence of God; for amidst our agitations, vexations, and cares, we ought to be fully persuaded that it is his peculiar office to give relief to the wretched and afflicted. It is in an improper sense, and by anthropathy, “C’est quand nous attribuons a Dieu les passions, affections, et fatOhs de faire des hommes.” — Fr. marg. “That is, when we attribute to God the passions, affections, and manners of men.”
“Pour faire vengence.” — Fr.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 So soon as we enter into affliction, we think…
So soon as we enter into affliction, we think God should help us, but that is not always his due time.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–18 Psa 10:1 Why standest thou afar off, O LORD?…
Psa 10:1 Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? [why] hidest thou [thyself] in times of trouble?
Ver. 1. Why standest thou afar off, O Lord?] As if thou hadst forgotten what thou hadst promised thy people in the formed psalm; which the Greek and Latin versions make to be one and the same with this, as having no title, and tending almost to the same purpose. Hence the difference in numbers, which holdeth almost to the end of the psalter, viz. to Psa 148:1-14.
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Why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?] So God seemeth to do when he helpeth not presently; neither doth anything more trouble the saints in affliction than the want of God’s gracious presence. This maketh them thus to expostulate and lament after the Lord; not quarrel, as those hypocrites did, Isa 58:3, or revile, as Caligula did his Jupiter, taking up that verse in Homer, Zευ πατερ ουτις σειο Yεων ολοωτερος αλλος, or with him (little better) in the holy history, who said, "Behold, this evil is of the Lord; what should I wait for the Lord any lenger?" 2Ki 6:33. The good soul knows that God waiteth to be gracious; and as he seldom cometh at our time, so at his own (which is ever the best) time he never faileth.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–18 Why standest thou afar off, like one that neither…
Why standest thou afar off, like one that neither sees, nor hears, nor regards me, nor intendest any help for me?
Thyself, or, thy face, out of Psa 10:11, which did sometimes shine upon me; or, thine eyes, by comparing this with Pro 28:27; Isa 1:15.
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In times of trouble, when I most need thy pity and succour. Do not add affliction to the afflicted.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 12 David, in these verses, discovers,
David, in these verses, discovers,
I. A very great affection to God and his favour; for, in the time of trouble, that which he complains of most feelingly is God's withdrawing his gracious presence (Psa 10:1): "Why standest thou afar off, as one unconcerned in the indignities done to thy name and the injuries done to the people?" Note, God's withdrawings are very grievous to his people at any time, but especially in times of trouble. Outward deliverance is afar off and is hidden from us, and then we think God is afar off and we therefore want inward comfort; but that is our own fault; it is because we judge by outward appearance; we stand afar off from God by our unbelief, and then we complain that God stands afar off from us.
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II. A very great indignation against sin, the sins that made the times perilous, Ti2 3:1. he beholds the transgressors and is grieved, is amazed, and brings to his heavenly Father their evil report, not in a way of vain-glory, boasting before God that he was not as these publicans (Luk 18:11), much less venting any personal resentments, piques, or passions, of his own; but as one that laid to he art that which is offensive to God and all good men, and earnestly desired a reformation of manners. passionate and satirical invectives against bad men do more hurt than good; if we will speak of their badness, let it be to God in prayer, for he alone can make them better. This long representation of the wickedness of the wicked is here summed up in the first words of it (Psa 10:2), The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor, where two things are laid to their charge, pride and persecution, the former the cause of the latter. Proud men will have all about them to be of their mind, of their religion, to say as they say, to submit to their dominion, and acquiesce in their dictates; and those that either eclipse them or will not yield to them they malign and hate with an inveterate hatred. Tyranny, both in state and church, owes its origin to pride. The psalmist, having begun this description, presently inserts a short prayer, a prayer in a parenthesis, which is an advantage and no prejudice to the sense: Let them be taken, as proud people often are, in the devices that they have imagined, Psa 10:2. Let their counsels be turned headlong, and let them fall headlong by them. These two heads of the charge are here enlarged upon.
1. They are proud, very proud, and extremely conceited of themselves; justly therefore did he wonder that God did not speedily appear against them, for he hates pride, and resists the proud. (1.) The sinner proudly glories in his power and success. He boasts of his heart's desire, boasts that he can do what he pleases (as if God himself could not control him) and that he has all he wished for and has carried his point. Ephraim said, I have become rich, I have found me out substance, Hos 12:8. "Now, Lord, is it for thy glory to suffer a sinful man thus to pretend to the sovereignty and felicity of a God?" (2.) He proudly contradicts the judgment of God, which, we are sure, is according to truth; for he blesses the covetous, whom the Lord abhors. See how God and men differ in their sentiments of persons: God abhors covetous worldlings, who make money their God and idolize is; he looks upon them as his enemies, and will have no communion with them. The friendship of the world is enmity to God. But proud persecutors bless them, and approve their sayings, Psa 49:13. They applaud those as wise whom God pronounces foolish (Luk 12:20); they justify those as innocent whom God condemns as deeply guilty before him; and they admire those as happy, in having their portion in this life, whom God declares, upon that account, truly miserable. Thou, in thy lifetime, receivedst thy good things. (3.) He proudly casts off the thoughts of God, and all dependence upon him and devotion to him (Psa 10:4): The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, that pride of his heart which appears in his very countenance (Pro 6:17), will not seek after God, nor entertain the thoughts of him. God is not in all his thoughts, not in any of them. All his thoughts are that there is not God. See here, [1.] The nature of impiety and irreligion; it is not seeking after God and not having him in our thoughts. There is no enquiry made after him (Job 35:10, Jer 2:6), no desire towards him, no communion with him, but a secret wish to have no dependence upon him and not to be beholden to him. Wicked people will not seek after God (that is, will not call upon him); they live without prayer, and that is living without God. They have many thoughts, many projects and devices, but no eye to God in any of them, no submission to his will nor aim at his glory. [2.] The cause of this impiety and irreligion; and that is pride. Men will not seek after God because they think they have no need of him, their own hands are sufficient for them; they think it a thing below them to be religious, because religious people are few, and mean, and despised, and the restraints of religion will be a disparagement to them. (4.) He proudly makes light of God's commandments and judgments (Psa 10:5): His wings are always grievous; he is very daring and resolute in his sinful courses; he will have his way, though ever so tiresome to himself and vexatious to others; he travails with pain in his wicked courses, and yet his pride makes him wilful and obstinate in them. God's judgments (what he commands and what he threatens for the breach of his commands) are far above out of his sight; he is not sensible of his duty by the law of God nor of his danger by the wrath and curse of God. Tell him of God's authority over him, he turns it off with this, that he never saw God and therefore does not know that there is a God, he is in the height of heaven, and quae supra nos nihil ad nos - we have nothing to do with things above us. Tell him of God's judgments which will be executed upon those that go on still in their trespasses, and he will not be convinced that there is any reality in them; they are far above out of his sight, and therefore he thinks they are mere bugbears. (5.) He proudly despises all his enemies, and looks upon them with the utmost disdain; he puffs at those whom God is preparing to be a scourge and ruin to him, as if he could baffle them all, and was able to make his part good with them. But, as it is impolitic to despise an enemy, so it is impious to despise any instrument of God's wrath. (6.) He proudly sets trouble at defiance and is confident of the continuance of his own prosperity (Psa 10:6): He hath said in his heart, and pleased himself with the thought, I shall not be moved, my goods are laid up for many years, and I shall never be in adversity; like Babylon, that said, I shall be a lady for ever, Isa 47:7; Rev 18:7. Those are nearest ruin who thus set it furthest from them.
2. They are persecutors, cruel persecutors. For the gratifying of their pride and covetousness, and in opposition to God and religion, they are very oppressive to all within their reach. Observe, concerning these persecutors, (1.) That they are very bitter and malicious (Psa 10:7): His mouth is full of cursing. Those he cannot do a real mischief to, yet he will spit his venom at, and breathe out the slaughter which he cannot execute. Thus have God's faithful worshippers been anathematized and cursed, with bell, book, and candle. Where there is a heart full of malice there is commonly a mouth full of curses. (2.) They are very false and treacherous. There is mischief designed, but it is hidden under the tongue, not to be discerned, for his mouth is full of deceit and vanity. He has learned of the devil to deceive, and so to destroy; with this his hatred is covered, Pro 26:26. He cares not what lies he tells, not what oaths he breaks, nor what arts of dissimulation he uses, to compass his ends. (3.) That they are very cunning and crafty in carrying on their designs. They have ways and means to concert what they intend, that they may the more effectually accomplish it. Like Esau, that cunning hunter, he sits in the lurking places, in the secret places, and his eyes are privily set to do mischief (Psa 10:8), not because he is ashamed of what he does (if he blushed, there were some hopes he would repent), not because he is afraid of the wrath of God, for he imagines God will never call him to an account (Psa 10:11), but because he is afraid lest the discovery of his designs should be the breaking of them. Perhaps it refers particularly to robbers and highwaymen, who lie in wait for honest travellers, to make a prey of them and what they have. (4.) That they are very cruel and barbarous. Their malice is against the innocent, who never provoked them - against the poor, who cannot resist them and over whom it will be no glory to triumph. Those are perfectly lost to all honesty and honour against whose mischievous designs neither innocence nor poverty will be any man's security. Those that have power ought to protect the innocent and provide for the poor; yet these will be the destroyers of those whose guardians they ought to be. And what do they aim at? It is to catch the poor, and draw them into their net, that is, get them into their power, not to strip them only, but to murder them. They hunt for the precious life. It is God's poor people that they are persecuting, against whom they bear a mortal hatred for his sake whose they are and whose image they bear, and therefore they lie in wait to murder them: He lies in wait as a lion that thirsts after blood, and feeds with pleasure upon the prey. The devil, whose agent he is, is compared to a roaring lion that seeks not what, but whom, he may devour. (5.) That they are base and hypocritical (Psa 10:10): He crouches and humbles himself, as beasts of prey do, that they may get their prey within their reach. This intimates that the sordid spirits of persecutors and oppressors will stoop to any thing, though ever so mean, for the compassing of their wicked designs; witness the scandalous practices of Saul when he hunted David. It intimates, likewise, that they cover their malicious designs with the pretence of meekness and humility, and kindness to those they design the greatest mischief to; they seem to humble themselves to take cognizance of the poor, and concern themselves in their concernments, when it is in order to make them fall, to make a prey of them. (6.) That they are very impious and atheistical, Psa 10:11. They could not thus break through all the laws of justice and goodness towards man if they had not first shaken off all sense of religion, and risen up in rebellion against the light of its most sacred and self-evident principles: He hath said in his heart, God has forgotten. When his own conscience rebuked him with the consequences of it, and asked how he would answer it to the righteous Judge of heaven and earth, he turned it off with this, God has forsaken the earth, Eze 8:12; Eze 9:9. This is a blasphemous reproach, [1.] Upon God's omniscience and providence, as if he could not, or did not, see what men do in this lower world. [2.] Upon his holiness and the rectitude of his nature, as if, though he did see, yet he did not dislike, but was willing to connive at, the most unnatural and inhuman villanies. [3.] Upon his justice and the equity of his government, as if, though he did see and dislike the wickedness of the wicked, yet he would never reckon with them, nor punish them for it, either because he could not or durst not, or because he was not inclined to do so. Let those that suffer by proud oppressors hope that God will, in due time, appear for them; for those that are abusive to them are abusive to God Almighty too.
In singing this psalm and praying it over, we should have our hearts much affected with a holy indignation at the wickedness of the oppressors, a tender compassion of the miseries of the oppressed, and a pious zeal for the glory and honour of God, with a firm belief that he will, in due time, give redress to the injured and reckon with the injurious.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–18 Why standest thou afar off, O Lord?.... This psalm…
Why standest thou afar off, O Lord?.... This psalm begins with a complaint which proceeds on two general heads; the one is with respect to God, his distance from his people, and desertion of them in times of trouble, in this verse; and the other is with respect to the wicked in some following ones. God by his infinite essence and power is everywhere, and is never far off from any of his creatures; and though his glorious presence is in heaven, which, with respect to us on earth, is a land afar off, yet this hinders not but that there is often great nearness between God and his people; and when he stands afar off from them in their apprehensions, it is when he withdraws his gracious presence from them, and defers help and assistance to them, and does not immediately and directly come and visit them: this they cannot bear, they complain; they wonder that, seeing they are the objects of his love, this should be his manner of conduct towards them; they expostulate with him, and inquire for what end and upon what account he should so use them, and most earnestly desire that he would haste and come unto them and help them; see Psa 22:1;
why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? when God seems to take no notice of his people, does not look upon them, but turns a deaf ear to them, he is said to hide his face, his eyes and ears, from them: and this is sometimes the case of the best of saints, as it has been of Job, David, Heman, and others; and though this is done in a sovereign way by God, who comes and goes when he pleases; for sensible communion with him as much depends upon his sovereign pleasure as the gift of his grace itself does; yet, generally speaking, the denial or withdrawing of his gracious presence is by way of resentment for some disagreeable conduct and behaviour of his people; and is consistent with his everlasting and unchangeable love to them, but is what fills them with grief and sorrow; nor can they: forbear making mournful complaints upon it; and this is aggravated when it is a time of trouble with them, either of soul trouble, by reason of the prevalence of unbelief, and the force of Satan's temptations; or of bodily affliction; though times of trouble here seem to design times of persecution, as may be concluded from the connection of these words with the following; and antichristian times are times of persecution: during the reign of antichrist, in which he is suffered to make war with the saints and overcome them; and during the church's being in the wilderness the space of one thousand two hundred and sixty days or years, God may seem to stand at a distance, and to hide himself from her.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 David complains of and describes the wicked, ver. 1-15.…
David complains of and describes the wicked, ver. 1-15. Prays to God to appear against them, and rejoices in the prospect of it, ver. 12-18.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 The psalmist complains to God of the oppressions which…
PSALM X
The psalmist complains to God of the oppressions which the poor
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suffer from the wicked man, whom he describes as the hater of
the poor, 1, 2;
proud, 3;
one who will not seek God, 4;
and is regardless of his judgments, 5;
self-confident, 6;
blasphemous and deceitful, 7;
strives by subtlety and treachery to destroy the poor, 8-10;
and supposes that God is regardless of his conduct, 11.
The psalmist calls earnestly on God to preserve the poor and
humble, and cast down the oppressor, 12-15.
He foresees that his prayer is heard; that judgment will be
executed, and the poor delivered, 16-18.
NOTES ON PSALM X
Verse 1. Why standest thou afar off, O Lord?] This Psalm makes a part of the preceding in the Vulgate and Septuagint; and in four of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS. It seems to belong to the time of the captivity, or the return of the captives. It was probably made in reference to Sanballat, and the other enemies or the Jews. There is a great similarity between this and Psalms 13, Ps 14, Ps 35, and Ps 53. In these, as Calmet remarks, we find the same complaints, the same sentiments, and almost the same expressions.
God is represented here as standing at some distance, beholding the oppression of his people, and yet apparently disregarding it.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17 Psa 10:1. Why standest thou afar off — As…
Psa 10:1. Why standest thou afar off — As one unconcerned in the indignities offered to thy name, and the injuries done to thy people? Why hidest thou thyself — Withdrawest thy presence and aid, and the light of thy countenance which was wont to shine upon us? Why art thou as a person concealing himself, so as not to be found of those who would petition for aid or counsel? In times of trouble? — When we most need thy pity and succour. Do not add affliction to the afflicted. God’s withdrawing his presence and favour from his people is very grievous to them at any time, but particularly in times of trouble. For when outward blessings are afar off, and, as it were, hidden from them, then especially do they want the inward support and comfort which his gracious presence affords. But that we have not this, is generally our own fault. We stand afar off from God by unbelief and love of the world, and then complain, that God stands afar off from us, and does not favour us with manifestations of his love and mercy.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–18 Why standest thou afar off, O Lord? - That…
Why standest thou afar off, O Lord? - That is, What is the reason why thou doest this? The thought upon which this is based is that God might be expected to interpose in a time of trouble, and that His aid might then be looked for. Yet, in this case, He seemed to be an indifferent spectator of the sorrows and afflictions of the wronged and oppressed. This filled the mind of the writer with surprise, and he could not account for it, especially in view of the character of the person or persons who had wronged the author of the psalm. “To stand afar off” in such circumstances, is an attitude of indifference and unconcern - as when others do not come near us if we are sick, or are bereaved, or are in circumstances of poverty and want. That man should do this would have produced no surprise in the mind of the writer; that God should do it was something that filled him with wonder.
Why hidest thou thyself? - As if God concealed himself or kept away. He did not manifest himself, but seemed to let the afflicted man suffer alone.
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In times of trouble - Affliction, sorrow, persecution. The particular trouble referred to here was that which was produced by the machinations of the enemy or enemies whose character is described in the following verses. The question, however, is put in a general form, as if it; were strange and unaccountable that God should ever fail to interpose in time of trouble. How often has there been occasion to ask this question in our world!
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 10
Psalms 10
1 Why standest thou afar off, O Lord?
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Why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?
2 The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor:
Let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.
3 For the wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire,
And blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth.
4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God:
God is not in all his thoughts.
5 His ways are always grievous;
Thy judgments are far above out of his sight:
As for all his enemies, he puffeth at them.
6 He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved:
For I shall never be in adversity.
7 His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud:
Under his tongue is mischief and vanity.
8 He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages:
In the secret places doth he murder the innocent:
His eyes are privily set against the poor.
9 He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den:
He lieth in wait to catch the poor:
He doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.
10 He croucheth, and humbleth himself,
That the poor may fall by his strong ones.
11 He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten:
He hideth his face; he will never see it.
12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thine hand:
Forget not the humble.
13 Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God?
He hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.
14 Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand:
The poor committeth himself unto thee;
Thou art the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break thou the arm of the wicked
And the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none.
17 The Lord is King for ever and ever:
The heathen are perished out of his land.
17 Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble:
Thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear:
18 To judge the fatherless and the oppressed,
That the man of the earth may no more oppress.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Its Character.—The last four strophes (Psa_10:12 sq.) begin with the last four letters of the Hebrew alphabet in their order; Psa_10:1 with ל; the six intervening strophes correspond in number with the corresponding letters; but they are not represented in acrostics. Many interpreters are therefore inclined to regard this Psalm, which is without title, but has many resemblances in its language to the previous Psalm, as originally a part of it, and indeed so that either the author has not succeeded in carrying out the alphabetical order so strictly as in the preceding part (most interpreters), or that the present Psa_10:2-11 are a later substitute for the acrostic verses (Olsh.) But this very passage has a very ancient color, and is full of obscurity and is rough. Delitzsch, recognizing the peculiar subject of this Psalm as differing very widely from the preceding Psalm, would regard it rather as a copy of the form of the earlier Psalms 9, made not so much by David himself as by a poet about the same time. But how then can we explain the fact, that the alphabetical order, which begins with ל with so much purpose, should be given up already in the second strophe and reappear so long after? In the present form it is inadmissible to unite it with the ninth Psalm into one Psalm (as the Sept.). But the similarity cannot be denied, and the thoughts of the oppressed condition of the pious, who seem to be forgotten for awhile by God, which are expressed towards the close of the former Psalm passing over into petition and invocation of Jehovah, are here carried out into lamentation. There is a transition in Psa_10:12. God is called upon to interfere; and he finally expresses the confidence that he will be heard (Psa_10:17). For this reason we may very well regard them as belonging together as a pair of Psalms (Hengst.). [Vid. the introduction of the preceding Psalm.—C. A. B.]
Str. I. Ver I. Why.—For the explanation of the accentuation as oxytone, in order to give the word a firmness and emphasis especially before the name of God, vid. Hupf. The meaning is not, that of searching for the reason, not that of objection and displeasure, but it is a question of lamentation, with the request that God will draw near to judge and to help.
[Standest thou afar off.—Perowne: “Like an idle, passive spectator, unconcerned at the misery which he sees, but refuses to relieve.”—C. A. B.]—Hidest.—The covering over is here not expressed as reflexive = to conceal one’s self, but as active, so that we must supply: thine eyes (Is. 50:15), or thine ears (Lam_3:56).
Psa_10:2. Through the pride of the wicked the afflicted man burns [A. V., The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor].—It does not mean the heat of persecution (many Rabbins, Calv.), no more the heat of anger (Hengst.), but the heat of anxiety (all ancient translators, and most modern interpreters), the heat of affliction (Clauss., Stier). [Perowne: “Through the proud dealing of the wicked their victims are placed in the fire or furnace of affliction.”—C. A. B.] The collective singular is exchanged for the plural in the second member. Since the subject is not given more particularly, there is an uncertainty whether the wicked are referred to as taken in their own craftiness, or the afflicted as taken in the plots devised by the wicked. With the first interpretation the verb is regarded as optative (Aquil., Jerome, Kimchi, Calv.), and the clause as a parenthesis, a pious ejaculation uttered in advance (Ruding). Most interpreters, however, adopt the second view, regarding it as indicative, with all the other ancient translations. This short statement of the circumstances is completely explained in the following verses, and thereby the propriety is proved of the lamentation which has been made.
Str. II. Psa_10:3. Blesseth the defrauder.—Hupf. maintains this interpretation, which is represented by Aben Ezra, Kimchi, Geier, et al, according to which the subject is contained in the verb, and the word which begins the clause is in the accusative. (This word means not an avaricious, covetous man or indeed a man who makes a gain generally, but a man who makes an unrighteous gain whether by craft or force). Indeed those who regard the substantive as subject. and the verb as passive (Sept., Vulg., Syr., Michael., et al.), or reflexive (Jerome, Venema, Stier), which the language does not allow, gain a similar sense. Others regard the subst. as subject, and take the blessing either in a bad sense = curse, abuse (Gesenius and De Wette with other of the fathers), or they get this meaning, which cannot be shown except in the language of the Talmud, through the meaning: valedicere, depart, forsake, renounce, which can certainly be proved (Rosenm., Ewald, Köst., Delitzsch, Hitzig), whilst Hengst. and Hofm. explain: he blesses, he reviles, no matter whether the one or the other.—Despiseth Jehovah.—[A. V., “whom the Lord abhorreth.” This is contrasted with the “blesseth the defrauder,” so Perowne, Wordsworth, et al. The authorized version is incorrect.—C. A. B.]
Psa_10:4. The wicked in his haughtiness: “He doth not punish.” “Thinks” or “speaks” is to be supplied after haughtiness. Earlier interpreters were in error in regarding these words as the predicate of the ungodly, and translating: he asks not, namely, after God [A. V] or Divine commands; or he does not investigate; or, indeed, he asks after nothing. [Perowne: “He (God) will not require it.” Wordsworth: “ ‘God will not make inquisition;’ there is no judgment to come. This is the impious and scornful spirit of which the prophets speak (Isa_5:19; Mal_2:17), ‘Where is the God of judgment?’ and which St. Peter describes, ‘There shall come in the last day scoffers, walking after their own lusts and saying, Where is the promise of His coming?’ 2Pe_3:4.” Almost all modern interpreters are agreed in a similar translation.—C. A. B.]—“There is no God;” (thus) all his calculations.—This clause others, in accordance with the translations, regard as an exclamation: “There is no God in all his thoughts” [A. V., “God is not in all his thoughts.”]. Mich., Rosenm., et al., following Kimchi, more properly find the contents of his thoughts stated. Since however the text does not speak of thoughts but of calculations, and even in the previous clause the existence of God is not denied by the ungodly, but the activity of God, and indeed His judicial activity, Hengst., Hupfeld, Delitzsch, following Calv. and Venema, explain it with more accuracy thus: “God is not, are all His calculations,” that is, they are a continual practical denial of God.9
Str. III. Psa_10:5. Strong [A. V. grievous].—Since the entire passage is a description of the walk of the ungodly, and not of his lot, the reference of the Chald. “to the success of his undertakings,” which most interpreters follow, is not entirely correct. We might rather, with Luther and Geier, suppose a reference to the duration and perseverance of his bad conduct; only this does not agree very well with the clause: “at all times.” This would very well express the idea of daily, constant, if we could, with Schröder, (Comm. inPs. 10, Gröning. 1754) explain in accordance with the Arabic: distorted = crooked are his ways. But this meaning cannot be shown in the Hebrew, but rather that of being strong. Is not this meant to indicate the regardless and heedless, and therefore dangerous advance of the wicked to their purposes, treading down many persons and things; as contrasted with every kind of feebleness and sneaking conduct? The ancient translations are all astray on account of false etymologies.—Are far above, out of his sight.—[Barnes: “They are out of the range of his vision. His thoughts grovel on the earth, and he is never elevated in his view so as to see the great principles of truth.” Wordsworth refers to Job_22:12-13 “Is not God in the height of heaven? And thou sayest how doth God know?”—C. A. B.]—He puffeth at them.—This could be said of snorting in wrath, or thirst for blood (Chald.), or of blowing away (Symm., Calv., Hengst.), and blowing down (Isaki, Flam., Vatab.); it is best to refer it to a gesture of contempt (Syr., Jerome, and most others). [Hupf: “A description of the security of the wicked, all is favorable to him, and neither God nor man hinder him.” Riehm: “The third clause describes his relation to his enemies as the preceding his relation to God: he has neither God nor man to fear, Luk_18:14.”—C. A. B.]
Str. IV. Psa_10:6. [Delitzsch: In his unbounded carnal security he lets his wicked tongue have free course.”—C. A. B.] The אשׁר brings into prominence the dear I of the proud fool (Delitz.) Others translate by “for,” [A. V.], or seek by a different pointing, to get the meaning of “success,” or failure, or successful, never unfortunate (Mich., Dathe, Köhler), or they change the reading. Hupf. and Camph. refer the clause as relative to the preceding word: generation = which is without misfortune. [Hupf.: “I shall not be moved for generations, or from generation to generation, which will be without adversity.” Riehm follows Hitzig thus: “אשׁר introduces the direct discourse, as 2Sa_1:4, and is put back in the clause as in the corresponding passage, Zec_8:20; Zec_8:23, “from generation to generation, that I shall not be in adversity.” Barnes: “The idea of the wicked is that they and their families would continue to be prosperous, that a permanent foundation was laid for honor and success, and for transmitting accumulated wealth and honors down to far distant times.”—C. A. B.]
Str. V. Psa_10:8. Villages.—[Perowne refers to the haunts of the robbers, nomad encampments of predatory Bedouins, who thence fell upon helpless travellers.”10 Perowne: “There is some confusion in the metaphors employed. The wicked man is compared first to the lion watching for his prey, and then to the hunter taking wild animals in his net. Whereas again in Psa_10:10 we seem to have the image of the wild beast crushing his prey.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_10:10. He stoops [A. V., “croucheth.”]—A continued description of lying in wait (Chald., Isaki, Vatabl., Ewald, Olsh., Delitzsch). Others regard the unfortunate one as the subject, and translate with Aquil. and Jerome: and he sinks down crushed (Rosenmüller, De Wette, Hengstenberg, [Alexander, Perowne]), or they regard the adjective itself as the subject, and the oppressed sinks down (Hupfeld).11—His strong ones, according to Mich., are the companions of the wicked, according to Jerome his powers, or according to the Rabbins, his limbs. Most interpreters suppose a particular reference to the claws or teeth of the lion. Others, with Chald. and Calv., regard the plural as indicating the abstract strength. Hupfeld, since the verb is in the singular, although elsewhere it is often connected with the plural of the subject, connects it with the preceding clause = and falls, on account of the singular which precedes. He does not then decide whether the concluding words form an adverbial clause = by his strength, the poor; or an independent clause = the poor are in his power.
Str. VI. Psa_10:11. [Hupfeld: “Refrain with full meaning at the close of the lamentation, ground and motive of the action just described, and at the same time prelude to the following prayer.”—C. A. B.]
Str. VII. Psa_10:12-13. [Delitzsch. “In contrast with those who have no God, or only dead idols, the Psalmist calls upon his God, the living God, that He will do away with the appearance that He was not the Omniscient, self-conscious being. The names of God are heaped up. He is to lift up His hand in order to punish.”—C. A. B.]
Str. VIII. Psa_10:14. [Thou hast seen it.—Perowne: “An energetic protest against the words immediately preceding, and also with a reference to the ‘He will never see,’ Psa_10:11, throwing back the words in the mouth of the wicked. There is a time coming he feels, when all this disorder will be set right. God is not the passive spectator of human affairs which these men deem Him.”—C. A. B.]—To take in thy hand—Most interpreters suppose a writing upon the hand in order to call to remembrance. Some, following Sept., Syr., Symm., Jerome, of giving over to punishment, others following the Chald., of punishment itself as requiting with the hand [So A. V.] Hupfeld finds here a reference to the energy and practical consequences of Divine knowledge, as a transition to action.
Str. IX. Psa_10:15. [A. V., “Seek out his wickedness till thou find none.” Perowne: “When his wickedness is sought for, let it no more be found.” Wordsworth: “Thou wilt exercise a searching inquiry into all human actions, and wilt make a full end of iniquity by utterly destroying every vestige of it.” Riehm regards Jehovah as the subject, and the verb as imperative, as in the first member, and translates: “And the unrighteousness of the wicked mayest thou seek and not find it, the idea being that the wicked should be made so harmless that his wickedness should disappear without leaving any trace, so that God, when He seeks after it in order to punish it, may find it no more. God ever continues to seek out wickedness; but the Psalmist desires that it may be that He shall find nothing more to punish.”—C. A. B.] Respecting the eternal sovereignty of Jehovah, Psa_10:16, compare Zec_14:9; Dan_7:14; Rev_11:15.—Jehovah is king forever.—[Alexander: “He is not dethroned, as His enemies imagine; He is still King, and will so remain in perpetuity and eternity, forever and ever.”—C. A. B.]
Str. X. Psa_10:17. [Wilt prepare.—Hupfeld: “Strengthen their heart; to make a firm, comforted heart, unwavering in its feelings (Psa_51:12; Psa_57:8; Psa_78:37; Psa_112:7), in contrast to a heart agitated, trembling, shaken in its attitude, inconstant, fluctuating between hope and fear, and other opposite feelings. Here God strengthens by hearing, or rather by faith, the inner confidence that the prayer will be heard.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_10:18. Terrify [A. V., “oppress.”]—The play upon words may be expressed in Latin: ne terreat—homo e terra. It may also be translated: defy (Sept., Jerome, Luth., Geier, Hengst.), or to be violent (Mich). The verb stands absolutely (Calv.) so that “they” (Kimchi) cannot be supplied. This translation: no longer will he (the wretched one) frighten man from the earth (Aben Ezra), is less appropriate; still less the very different rendering: they or he (the wicked man) will no more frighten the man (the miserable) from the land (Syr., Rosenm., De Wette). The earth is here not mentioned as the material from which the enôsh is made, but as the place of his abode, from which he rises in wickedness. Baur (in De Wette’s Comm.) proposes to refer the first words of the last line as parenthesis to the oppressed = he is it no longer, to regard the last words, however, as parallel with the previous line, as a statement of the kind of Divine help = frightening the rabble from the land. Böttcher translates: Let not the weak flee terrified from the land. [Riehm: “No longer will man inspire with fear from the earth.” The Psalmist expresses the confidence at the close corresponding with the wish, Psa_9:19, “that it will result from God’s judgment that no wicked man, or that no man will any more be terrible to others, but Jehovah alone in heaven.” “This completely remedies the lamentation, Psa_10:2.”—C. A. B.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The enemies of the pious are not only strong, crafty, unscrupulous, cruel, and eager to devise the ruin of their opponents, but they are likewise without faith, and godless even to the extent of denying that there is a God. But whilst they rage. scorn, and blaspheme, and in their pride wickedly disregard all Divine commands, and offend against all human order and rights; God sees how they act and how His servants suffer; and God reveals to them both the power of his hand, as the God who is always and eternally King.
2. On this very account the pious very properly commit themselves to God, and this secures them from despair. But the time, before Divine help appears, is often very long, and it is hard for him to wait. It is well for him if he then strengthens his hope and revives his trust in God, and arms himself for patience in suffering, by prayer.
3. In the anguish of external trouble and internal affliction the pious may, with propriety, urge God to hasten to their relief; but although the voice of their lamentation may resound, yet it must not contain a complaint against God, as if He improperly delayed, or as if He left the afflicted in continual danger without reason, or as if He had purposely shut His eyes and ears against their need and prayers. In the realization of their weakness, they must give themselves and their cause entirely into the hands of God.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
He who has nothing under him but the earth upon which he walks and stands, may indeed at times in wicked presumption be arrogant and proud as if there was no God; but he will ere long be cast down by the everlasting King, whom he blasphemes and denies.—Many speak about God, but act as if there were no God.—God sees all that takes place on earth, He neglects nothing, He forgets no one, but He will not have the time, the place, or the form of the revelation of His righteousness prescribed to Him.—We should learn patience by the patience of God.—With God there is indeed delay, but no neglect.—He who would see the fulfilment of his hopes, must not only believe that God is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him; he must likewise pray to God and wait upon God.—As sure as God is everlasting King, so sure is the final and complete ruin of the ungodly, and the final and eternal salvation of the pious.—If God has taken anything into His hands we need not trouble ourselves with care; but we must at all times humble ourselves under His powerful hand, and lie in His hand of grace.
Starke: God often hides His face from us, and postpones His help, only that we may pray more earnestly.—The more success the ungodly have in their heart’s desire, the less they care for God.—Pride and haughtiness make the ungodly so unreasonable that they do not inquire after man or God, and they regard all wholesome reflection as folly.—The security and dissoluteness of man receive their support in not reflecting upon the judgments of God.—If an ungodly man believes in the word of God, he must likewise believe that his fall is near, that it will surely come. Since however he does not believe this, he must likewise regard the word of God as lies.—The ungodly make lies their refuge and hypocrisy their shelter; but the curse reaches them.—To deny Divine providence is to blaspheme against God.—When God begins to search after wickedness, then everything must come out; for God sees even into the most secret corners.—As long as the enemies of Christ are unable to cast Him down from His throne of glory, His Church will remain in spite of all the devils.
Osiander: Those who say that God does not take up the affairs of men, do as much as deny that there is a God, and blaspheme Him in the most cruel manner.—Menzel: What makes the ungodly so secure in the world? 1) Their success and progress; 2) their great number and adherents; 3) their wicked heart, which despises God, and does not fear that He will punish their wickedness because He delays a little. Why are such complaints of the saints described to us? 1) That we may see how painful it is for the pious heart when God seems to give way to the wicked; 2) that we may likewise know the weakness of the saints; they have likewise flesh and blood, therefore they struggle wonderfully with their trials; 3) that we may learn that God can bear with such weakness if only faith is maintained.—Franke: The heart must first be brought into the school of the cross, if a word that treats of the cross, is to be relished by him, and give him strength and nourishment.—Baumgarten: As long as a man regards God as his enemy, he wishes that there were no God.—Although some things are forgotten for a time, and no creature is troubled about them, yet God will in His time inquire for them, and break the arm of the ungodly.—Herberger: Hell is behind the pride of the ungodly; heaven and eternal life are behind the sufferings of pious hearts.—To err is human, but to continue constantly in wickedness is devilish.—Taube: Pride and wrath are always brothers.—The severest conflict, but likewise the most brilliant victory in cross-bearing, is the believing appropriation of the power and grace of God to myself as an individual, and to my present circumstances.
[Matth. Henry: We stand afar off from God by our unbelief, and then we complain that God stands afar off from us.—Where there is a heart full of malice, there is commonly a mouth full of curses.—Let those that suffer by proud oppressors hope that God will in due time appear for them; for those that are abusive to them are abusive to God Almighty too.—Barnes: Pride is at the root of all the Atheism, theoretical or practical, on the earth; at the root of all the reluctance which there is to seek the favor of God; at the root, therefore, of the misery and wretchedness of the world. Men act as if they were not responsible to their Maker, and as if it were a settled point that He would never call them to account.—Spurgeon: To the tearful eye of the sufferer the Lord seemed to stand still, as if He calmly looked on and did not sympathize with His afflicted one. Nay more, the Lord appeared to be afar off, no longer “a very present help in trouble,” but an inaccessible mountain, into which no man would be able to climb. The presence of God is the joy of His people, but any suspicion of His absence is distracting beyond measure.—The refiner is never far from the mouth of the furnace when his gold is in the fire, and the Son of God is always walking in the midst of the flames when His holy children are cast into them.—It is not the trouble, but the hiding of our Father’s face, which cuts us to the quick.—A smiling face and a rod are not fit companions. God bares the back that the blow may be felt; for it is only felt affliction which can become blest affliction. If we were carried in the arms of God over every stream, where would be the trial, and where the experience, which trouble is meant to teach us?—The only place where God is not in the thoughts of the wicked. This is a damning accusation; for where the God of heaven is not, the Lord of hell is reigning and raging; and if God be not in our thoughts, our thoughts will bring us to perdition.—Ah! there is one enemy who will not be puffed at. Death will puff at the candle of his life, and blow it out, and the wicked boaster will find it grim work to brag in the tomb.—God shall hunt the sinner forever; so long as there is a grain of sin in him it shall be sought out and punished.—God permits tyrants to arise as thorn-hedges to protect His Church from the intrusion of hypocrites, and that He may teach His backsliding children by them, as Gideon did the men of Succoth with the brier of the wilderness; but He soon cuts up these Herods, like the thorns, and casts them into the fire.”—Spurgeon’s Treasury of David: Thos. Watson: A spiritual prayer is an humble prayer.—The lower the heart descends, the higher the prayer ascends.—C. A. B.]
Footnotes:
[9][Hupfeld regards it as unnecessary to supply “speaks” in the former clause, and translates thus: “The unrighteous in his pride: ‘he will not avenge it,’ ‘there is no God,’ are all his calculations.”—C. A. B.]
[10][Thomson, in the Land and the Book, p. 314, alludes to these verses thus: “A thousand rascals, the living originals of this picture, are this day crouching and lying in wait all over the country to catch poor helpless travellers.” And again, p 383: “It was somewhat novel to be riding gaily along this solitary shore with professed robbers, and these bushy ravines swarming with their comrades, prowling about like beasts of prey.”—C. A. B.]
[11][Thomson, Land and Book, p. 445, thinks that David has the panther in view who “lies flat on his belly, and creeps almost insensibly toward the flock. His color is like the surrounding grass and stubble. He will thus manœuvre for hours, until finally within leaping distance, when he springs with one tremendous bound upon his terrified prey.” This is likely in the mixture of metaphorics.—C. A. B.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 Literally, "In pride of the wicked they (the poor…
Literally, "In pride of the wicked they (the poor or humble, Psa 10:17; Psa 12:5) shall be taken in the devices they (the proud) have imagined."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 1. Why—Not a demand for the reason of delay,…
1. Why—Not a demand for the reason of delay, but a plaintive appeal for help.
Afar off… hidest… thyself—Not literally, but in appearance— seemest to hide thyself.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–18 1. Why standest thou afar off] As an indifferent…
1. Why standest thou afar off] As an indifferent or indolent spectator. Cp. Psa_38:11 (of fair-weather friends); Psa_22:1 (of God); Isa_59:14; and the corresponding prayer in Psa_22:11; Psa_22:19, Psa_35:22, Psa_38:21, Psa_71:12. Conversely, God is said to be ‘near’ when His power is manifested (Psa_75:1, Psa_34:18).
why hidest thou thyself] Lit. why mufflest thou?—Thine eyes so that Thou dost not see (Isa_1:15); Thine ears so that Thou dost not hear (Lam_3:56). Cp. Psa_55:1.
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in times of trouble] Or, of extremity. See note on Psa_9:9.
1, 2. Stanza of Lamed. Expostulation with Jehovah for neglect of His persecuted people, and statement of the wrongs which call for redress.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18 (2) The wicked.—Better, in the pride of the wicked,…
(2) The wicked.—Better, in the pride of the wicked, the sufferer burns. (So LXX., Aquila, Symmachus, and Vulg.) Not to be taken of indignation felt by the sufferers, but literally of the afflictions they endure. The Authorised Version rendering of the next clause takes the wicked as the subject of the verb; but it preserves the parallelism better, and is more in accordance with the rest of the psalm (Psa_10:8-10), to understand it of the “humble,” the singular changing to the plural in the subject when supplied: “they (the sufferers) are taken (the verb is in the present) in the plot which they (the wicked) have devised.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18 This psalm is to some extent connected with the…
This psalm is to some extent connected with the preceding one, but not very closely. It has turns of expression which are identical, and not common elsewhere; e.g. "in times of trouble" (ver. 1; comp. Psa_9:9), and much similarity in the thoughts (comp. ver. 2, "Let them be taken," etc., with Psa_9:15, "In the net which they hid is their foot taken;" ver. 12, "Forget not the humble," with Psa_9:12, "He forgetteth not the cry of the humble;" ver. 16, "The heathen are perished out of the land," with Psa_9:5, Psa_9:6; and ver. 4, "God is not in all his thoughts," with Psa_9:17, "The nations that forget God"). The metrical structure is thought to be similar ("Speaker"s Commentary"), and there is the same imperfect and irregular employment of alphabetic arrangement. Moreover, in the Septuagint Version the two psalms are run into one; and the unusual absence of a title in the Hebrew raises the suspicion that they were once united there also. Yet in their subject they are markedly different. Psalm 9 is concerned almost wholly with the heathen, Psalm 10 with the wicked, by which we must understand wicked Israelites The former is a psalm of praise and thanksgiving, the latter one of complaint and entreaty; the former is triumphant and exulting, the latter menacing and mournful. Possibly they were composed about the same time, and with some reference of the one to the other, Psalm 9 being a review of Israel in its external relations, and Psalm 10 a review of Israel in its internal relations and prospects.
Why standest thou afar off, O Lord? Here is the key-note struck at once. Why does God stand aloof? Why, after delivering his people from their foreign foes, does he not interfere to protect his true people from their domestic oppressors? "Throughout the reign of David," as it has been truly observed, "Palestine was infested by brigands, and disturbed by a factious nobility" ("Speaker"s Commentary," vol. 4. p. 191). Why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? "Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself," says Isaiah. (Isa_45:15) And so Job complains, "He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him". (Isa_23:9) He seems neither to see nor hear. The psalmist inquires Why? It can only be answered, "In his wisdom; for his own purposes; because he knows it to be best.
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HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE Vers. 1-18. Why? or, Hard facts and puzzling questions.
Whether or no this psalm was originally a part of the ninth is a question which, as may be seen, is discussed by many expositors. The mere absence of a title to it is, however, a very slight indication in that direction; while the contrast, almost violent, between the two psalms seems to be sufficient to show that they could scarcely have been penned by the same writer at the same time. The ninth psalm is a song of praise over the great deliverance God had wrought in bringing about the destroyer"s destruction. This is a mournful wail over the ill designs and too successful plans of the wicked on the one hand, and over the long silence of God on the other.
The ungodly are at the very height of their riotous and iniquitous revelling; and the Divine interposition is passionately and agonizingly implored. We have no clue whatever to the precise period of disorder to which reference is here made. Perhaps it is well that we have not. There have been times in the history of the world and of the Church, again and again, when designing and godless men have been, as it were, let loose, and have been permitted to play havoc with God"s people, while the righteous were mourning and the wicked were boasting that God did not interpose to check their cruelties and crimes. And it will be necessary for the student and expositor to throw himself mentally into the midst of such a state of things, ere he can appreciate all the words of a psalm like this. For it is one of those containing words of man to God, and not words of God to man. We have therein terrific facts specified; hard questions asked; a permanent solace; a forced-out prayer.
I TERRIFIC FACTS. (Vers. 2-11) Let every phrase in this indictment be weighed; it presents as fearful a picture of human wickedness as any contained in the Word of God. It sets before us pride, persecution, device, boasting, ridicule, denial of Providence, hardness, scorn, evil-speaking, defying and denying of God, oppression and crushing of the poor, a glorying in deeds of shame, and expected impunity therein. And what is more trying still is, that God seems to let all this go on, and keeps silence, and stands afar off, and hides himself in times of trouble. Such trials were felt by the Protestants in their early struggles; by the Covenanters in times of persecution in Scotland; by faithful ones on the occasion of the St. Bartholomew Massacre; by the Waldenses and Albigenses; by Puritans and Independents under Charles I; by Churchmen under Cromwell; and by the Malagasy in our own times; and it is only by the terror of such times that psalms like this can be understood.
II HARD QUESTIONS. Of these there are two. One is in the first verse.
1. Why is God silent? As we look at matters, we might be apt to say that if God has indeed a people in the world, he will never let them fall into the hands of the destroyer; or that, if they are oppressed by evil men, God will quickly deliver them out of their hands, and will show his disapproval of their ways. But very often is it otherwise to sight, and then faith is tried; and it is no wonder that Old Testament saints should ask" Why?" when even New Testament saints often do the same! But we know that to his own, God gives an inward peace and strength that are better marks of his love and better proofs of his timely aid than any outward distinction could possibly be. Take, e.g. , the case of Blandina in the times of early persecution; and the cases of hundreds of others. And besides this, it is by the Christ-like bearing of believers under hardships such as these, that God reveals the reality and glory of his redeeming pace. (see 1Pe_4:12-14)
2. A second question is: Why doth the wicked contemn God? Ah! why does he? He does contemn God in many ways.
a. His inward thought is, "There is no God" (ver. 4).
b. He denies that God will call him to account (ver. 13).
c. He denies that God watches his actions (ver. 11).
d. He lulls himself in imagined perpetual security (ver. 6).
Thus the life of such a one is a perpetual denial or defiance of God. And all this is attributed
(a) to "pride" (ver. 4);
(b) to love of evil as evil (ver. 3).
And yet the psalmist, seeing through the vain boast of the ungodly, may well peal out again and again the question, "Why does he do this? "for the implied meaning of the writer is, "Why does he do this, when, in spite of all his proud glorying in ill, he knows that God will bring his wickedness to an end, and will call him to account for it? This is the thought which connects our present division with the next.
III PERMANENT SOLACE. However hard it may be to interpret the ways of nod at any one crisis, yet the believer knows that he must not judge God by what he sees of his ways, but ought to estimate his ways by what he knows of God. And there are four great truths known about God by the revelation of himself to man.
1. Jehovah is the eternal King (ver. 14).
2. God is the Helper of the fatherless (ver. 14).
3. God is known as the Judge of the oppressed. (ver. 18; cf. Psa_103:6 Psa_94:8-23)
4. God hears his people"s cry (ver. 17).
When believers know all this, they have a perpetual source of relief even under the heaviest cares. God"s plan for the world, in his government thereof by Jesus Christ, is to redress every wrong of man, and to bring about peace, by righteousness. (Psa_72:2, Psa_72:4)
IV FERVID PRAYER. (Vers. 12, 15) Times of severest pressure are those which force out the mightiest prayer. (Act 4:33-30) Luther, etc.; Daniel. (Dan_2:16-18 Dan_9:1-19) The true method of prayer is thus indicated, viz. to ascertain from God"s revelation of himself, what he is and what are his promises, and then to approach him in humble supplication, pleading with him to reveal the glory of his Name, by fulfilling the promises he has made; and when our prayers move in the direct line of Gods promises, we are absolutely sure of an answer. (but see Psa_65:5 Rev_8:4, 5 Deu_33:26-29) To-day is a day of God"s concealing himself; but his day of self-revealing is drawing nigh. C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-18. Times of darkness and fear.
The experiences of the psalmist may differ from ours, but by faith and sympathy we can enter into his feelings. Besides, there is always more or less of trouble. Life is full of vicissitudes. Times of darkness and of fear come to all. Not from one, but from many, the cry goes up to Heaven, "Why standest thou afar off?
I THE COMPLAINT. (Vers. 1-11) Why? Perplexity and fear are natural because of the silence of God. What makes his silence the more awful is that it is in sight of the sufferings of the good (ver. 2). On every side evil abounds. Truth, justice, benevolence, are set at naught. Might prevails against fight. Righteousness is fallen in the dust. Oppression has reached such a height that it seems as if it would finally triumph. The mystery deepens, when we mark that God"s silence is in the hearing of the vauntings of the wicked (vers. 3-11). The proud not only boast of their strength, but exult in their success. They have accomplished their evil desires. They parade their insolence and scorn in the very hearing of Heaven. Seeing there is no judgment executed, they harden their hearts, and hold on their way with reckless hardihood.
II THE APPEAL. (Vers. 12-18) The cry is impassioned and urgent. God"s truth and honour are concerned. Redress must be given, else things will soon be beyond remedy.
1. The experience of the past is urged. (Ver. 14) God is just. What he has done is earnest of what he will do. His deeds bind him as well as his promises.
2. The present also bears witness. (Ver. 5) There is requital even now. As surely as the good is blessed in his deed, the wicked is cursed in his wickedness.
3. The future is therefore anticipated with confidence. (Ver. 6) As the sinker muses on the character and ways of God, he rises to a bolder strain. Faith sees the vision of coming judgment. There are sore trials, there are great perplexities, but God is just. He is not indifferent. He is not helpless. He is not slack concerning his promise. But he waits in long-suffering mercy for the fit the appointed time. A prepared heart will always find a prepared God (vers. 16-18): "Thou wilt cause thine ears to hear." Men may give their ears, and no more. Not so God. He not only hears, but acts. There is the tenderest pity; but there is also the most tremendous power. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. W.F.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-18. The righteous God.
The one grand thought which runs through this psalm and most of the Old Testament literature is that God, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, is a Righteous Being, and that all wickedness must be punished and overthrown. In this psalm two principal thoughts are vividly pictured forth, and a prayer.
I A COMPLAINT TO GOD OF THE DARING ATHEISM OF THE WICKED. (Vers. 1-11)
1. He imagines himself to be above all restraint, human or Divine. (Vers. 2-4) Proud. boastful, blessing the robber, despising God, blind. "He requireth not; there is no God.
2. He feels safe and prosperous. (Vers. 5, 6)
3. His ways are full of deceit and violence. (Vers. 7, 8) This is a description of the wicked man in the very fulness and monstrosity of his evil power.
4. The cruelty of his ways. (Vers. 9-11) He is compared to a ravenous lion. His ferocity is entirely unrestrained, because either there is no God or he will not concern himself with the fate of the oppressed and afflicted.
II A PRAYER FOR GOD"S INTERPOSITION. (Vers. 12-15)
1. Founded upon the contrast between the thoughts of the wicked and the actual conduct of God. (Vers. 12-14)
2. And upon the expectations of the helpless and the forlorn. (Ver. 14) "The helpless leaveth it to thee, and thou wilt not disappoint him.
3. Wickedness can be destroyed and made to disappear from amongst men. (Ver. 15)
III THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH. The psalmist looks upon God"s work of comfort and salvation as being quite as certain in the future as if they had been works done in the past.
1. Jehovah is King for ever and ever. (Ver. 16) Nothing can overturn his eternal will.
2. The future triumph of God"s righteousness is regarded as already completed. (Vers. 17, 18) The beginning of the work which he has seen gives him faith that it will be perfected. "Perfect that which concerneth us." "He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18 Since this Psalm has no title of its own,…
Since this Psalm has no title of its own, it is supposed by some to be a fragment of Ps 9:1-20. We prefer, however, since it is complete in itself, to consider it as a separate composition. We have had instances already of Psalms which seem meant to form a pair (Ps 1:1-2:12 3: 1-4:8) and this, with the ninth, is another specimen of the double Psalm.
The prevailing theme seems to be the oppression and persecution of the wicked, we will, therefore, for our own guidance, entitle it, THE CRY OF THE OPPRESSED.
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The first verse, in an exclamation of surprise, explains the intent of the Psalm, viz., to invoke the interposition of God for the deliverance of his poor and persecuted people. From Ps 10:2-11, the character of the oppressor is described in powerful language. In Ps 10:12, the cry of the first verse bursts forth again, but with a clearer utterance. In the next place (Ps 10:13-15), God's eye is clearly beheld as regarding all the cruel deeds of the wicked; and as a consequence of divine omniscience, the ultimate judgment of the oppressed is joyously anticipated (Ps 10:16-18). To the Church of God during times of persecution, and to individual saints who are smarting under the hand of the proud sinner, this Psalm furnishes suitable language both for prayer and praise.
Ver. 1. To the tearful eye of the sufferer the Lord seemed to stand still, as if he calmly looked on, and did not sympathize with his afflicted one. Nay, more, the Lord appeared to be afar off, no longer "a very present help in trouble, "but an inaccessible mountain, into which no man would be able to climb. The presence of God is the joy of his people, but any suspicion of his absence is distracting beyond measure. Let us, then, ever remember that the Lord is nigh us. The refiner is never far from the mouth of the furnace when his gold is in the fire, and the Son of God is always walking in the midst of the flames when his holy children are cast into them. Yet he that knows the frailty of man will little wonder that when we are sharply exercised, we find it hard to bear the apparent neglect of the Lord when he forbears to work our deliverance.
Why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? It is not the trouble, but the hiding of our Father's face, which cuts us to the quick. When trial and desertion come together, we are in as perilous a plight as Paul, when his ship fell into a place where two seas met (Ac 27:41). It is but little wonder if we are like the vessel which ran aground, and the fore part stuck fast, and remained unmoveable, while the hinder part was broken by the violence of the waves. When our sun is eclipsed, it is dark indeed. If we need an answer to the question, "Why hidest thou thyself?" it is to be found in the fact that there is a "needs be, "not only for trial, but for heaviness of heart under trial (1Pe 1:6); but how could this be the case, if the Lord should shine upon us while he is afflicting us? Should the parent comfort his child while he is correcting him, where would be the use of the chastening? A smiling face and a rod are not fit companions. God bares the back that the blow may be felt; for it is only felt affliction which can become blest affliction. If we were carried in the arms of God over every stream, where would be the trial, and where the experience, which trouble is meant to teach us?
Whole Psalm. There is not, in my judgment, a Psalm which describes the mind, the manners, the works, the words, the feelings, and the fate of the ungodly with so much propriety, fulness, and light, as this Psalm. So that, if in any respect there has not been enough said heretofore, or if there shall be anything wanting in the Psalms that shall follow, we may here find a perfect image and representation of iniquity. This Psalm, therefore, is a type, form, and description of that man, who, though he may be in the sight of himself and of men more excellent than Peter himself, is detestable in the eyes of God; and this it was that moved Augustine, and those who followed him, to understand the Psalm of ANTICHRIST. But as the Psalm is without a title, let us embrace the most general and common understanding of it (as I said), and let us look at the picture of ungodliness which it sets before us. Not that we would deny the propriety of the acceptation in which others receive it, nay, we will, in our general acceptation of the Psalm, include also its reference to ANTICHRIST. And, indeed, it will not be at all absurd if we join this Psalm with the preceding, in its order thus. That David, in the preceding, spoke of the ungodly converted, and prayed for those who were to be converted. But that here he is speaking of the ungodly that are still left so, and in power prevailing over the weak ALMUTH, concerning whom he has no hope, or is in a great uncertainty of mind, whether they ever will be converted or not. Martin Luther.
Ver. 1. Why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? The answer to this is not far to seek, for if the Lord did not hide himself it would not be a time of trouble at all. As well ask why the sun does not shine at night, when for certain there could be no night if he did. It is essential to our thorough chastisement that the Father should withdraw his smile: there is a needs be not only for manifold temptations, but that we be in heaviness through them. The design of the rod is only answered by making us smart. If there be no pain, there will be no profit. If there be no hiding of God, there will be no bitterness, and consequently no purging efficacy in his chastisements. C.H.S.
Ver. 1. (last clause). Times of trouble should be times of confidence; fixedness of heart on God would prevent fears of heart. Ps 112:7. "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed." How? "Trusting in the Lord. His heart is established, he shall not be afraid." Otherwise without it we shall be as light as a weather cock, moved with every blast of evil tidings, our hopes will swim or sink according to the news we hear. Providence would seem to sleep unless faith and prayer awaken it. The disciples had but little faith in their Master's accounts, yet that little faith awakened him in a storm, and he relieved them. Unbelief doth only discourage God from showing his power in taking our parts. Stephen Charnock.
Ver. 1. The answer to these questions furnishes a noble topic for an experimental sermon. Let me suggest that the question is not to be answered in the same manner in all cases. Past sin, trials of graces, strengthening of faith, discovery of depravity, instruction, etc., etc., are varied reasons for the hiding of our Father's face.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 16, 17 Why standest Thou afar off, O Lord?
Psa_10:1-18
Why standest Thou afar off, O Lord?
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A theological difficulty, a haughty impiety, an earnest prayer
I. A theological difficulty.
Why standest Thou afar off, O Lord? Some great enormity was now under the eyes of David. We know not what. He had witnessed many such scenes. They have a tendency to suggest that God is indifferent. Even Christ felt this. Why hast Thou forsaken Me? Why does not God interfere? We cannot fully answer the question, but we may consider--
1. That God respects that freedom of action with which He has endowed man.
2. The sufferings which the wicked inflict upon the good are often disciplinary. Faith rests itself deeper.
3. There will be a period of retribution, For all these things God will bring thee into judgment.
II. A haughty impiety. The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor. See this impiety--
1. In its conduct towards men. It is cruel--persecutes. It is fraudulent--his mouth is full of deceit and fraud, both in speech--under his tongue, etc., and practice--he sitteth in the lurking places, etc.
2. In its conduct towards God.
There is here--
1. An expressed contempt for the Eternal. For the wicked boasteth of his hearts desire, etc.
2. A practical disregard for the Eternal, God is not in all his thoughts. He is without God.
3. An awful calumny on the Eternal. He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten me. Haughty impiety indeed.
III. An earnest prayer. Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up Thine hand. He desires--
1. A merciful interposition on behalf of the good. Forget not the humble. Piety ever breathes its prayers to heaven for such.
2. A righteous interposition against the wicked. Break Thou the arm, etc. Seek out his wickedness, etc. We cannot justify this part of Davids prayers, which were often as imperfect as many parts of his conduct.
IV. An exultant faith. The Lord is King forever and ever. David believed--
1. In the perpetuity of Gods Kingdom.
2. In His attention to human entreaties. Lord, Thou hast heard the desire of the humble.
3. In His vindication of the right. To judge the fatherless, etc. The wicked man is in an especial sense the man of the earth. Sprung from, living by and for it, and it only. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Mans cry for a solution of the felt distance of his Maker
There are many other passages which express the same sentiment (Jer_14:8). This cry implies--
1. That the distance is unnatural; and
2. Undesirable. Hence the question, How can this distance be explained? There are three sources to which alone we can look for light.
I. Human philosophy. It may theorise thus--
1. That God is too great to allow of close connection with Him. This is the Epicurean view. But no true thinker can accept it.
2. That the cause of the felt distance is Gods method of agency. This is mediatory and uniform; not direct, but indirect. He stands concealed behind the machinery of the universe. But this no satisfactory explanation. He acts mediatorially in heaven, and yet all there feel His presence. And there is uniformity in heaven also, but neither does that hinder the realisation of His presence.
II. Speculative theology. This says that man by sin has offended God, and hence God has in anger withdrawn from men, and will not return until His wrath is appeased by sacrifice. But this explanation fails--
1. Because inconsistent with the immutability of the Divine character. He cannot pass from love to anger, from the placid to the furious. It is impossible.
2. And inconsistent also with the moral excellence of God. Can what is unamiable with man be right with God? I trow not.
III. Divine revelation. It teaches that we by our sin have departed from God. The sinner is the prodigal son. Now,
1. This is a satisfactory solution. When we have sinned we feel God distant from us, and, moreover, indignant with us. So He appears to the sinful mind. In reality God is near him and loves him infinitely. But the Bible often presents God as He appears to the mind, as it speaks of natural objects as they appear to our senses. And
2. It is a vital solution. Knowing the cause is indispensable to its removal. And this the Bible teaches. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 10
Psalms 10
Psalms 9 and 10 are alike in their imperfectly acrostic structure, the occurrence of certain phrases-e.g., the very uncommon expression for "times of trouble," {Psa_9:9; Psa_10:1} "Arise, O Lord" {Psa_9:19; Psa_10:12} -and the references to the nations judgment. But the differences are so great that the hypothesis of their original unity is hard to accept. As already remarked, the enemies are different. The tone of the one psalm is jubilant thanksgiving for victory won and judgment affected; that of the other is passionate portraiture of a rampant foe and cries for a judgment yet unmanifested. They are a pair, though why the psalmist should have bound together two songs of which the unlikenesses are at least as great as the likenesses it is not easy to discover. The circumstances of his day may have brought the cruelty of domestic robbers close upon the heels of foreign foes, as is often the case, but that is mere conjecture.
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The acrostic structure is continued into Psalms 10, as if the last stanza of 9 had begun with the regular Kaph instead of the cognate Qoph; but it then disappears till Psa_10:12, from which point it continues to the end of the psalm, with the anomaly that one of the four stanzas has but one verse: the unusually long Psa_10:14. These four stanzas are allotted to the four last letters of the alphabet. Six letters are thus omitted, to which twelve verses should belong. The nine non-acrostic verses (Psa_10:3-11) are by some supposed to be substituted for the missing twelve, but there are too many verbal allusions to them in the subsequent part of the psalm to admit of their being regarded as later than it. Why, then, the break in the acrostic structure? It is noticeable that the (acrostic) psalm 9 is wholly addressed to God, and that the parts of 10 which are addressed to Him are likewise acrostic, the section Psa_10:3-11 being the vivid description of the "wicked," for deliverance from whom the psalmist prays. The difference of theme may be the solution of the difference of form, which was intended to mark off the prayer stanzas and to suggest, by the very continuity of the alphabetical scheme and the allowance made for the letters which do not appear, the calm flow of devotion and persistency, of prayer throughout the parenthesis of oppression. The description of the "wicked" is as a black rock damming the river, but it flows on beneath and emerges beyond.
The psalm falls into two parts after the introductory verse of petition and remonstrance: Psa_10:3-11, the grim picture of the enemy of the "poor"; and Psa_10:12-18, the cry for deliverance and judgment.
The first stanza (Psa_10:1-2) gives in its passionate cry a general picture of the situation, which is entirely different from that of Psalms 9. The two opposite characters, whose relations occupy so much of these early psalms, "the wicked" and "the poor," are, as usual, hunter and hunted, and God is passive, as if far away, and hiding His eyes. The voice of complaining but devout remonstrance is singularly like the voice of arrogant godlessness (Psa_10:4-11), but the fact which brings false security to the one moves the other "to prayer. The boldness and the submissiveness of devotion are both throbbing in that "Why?" and beneath it lies the entreaty to break this apparent apathy. Psa_10:2 spreads the facts of the situation before God. "Through the pride of the "wicked the afflicted is burned," i.e., with anguish, pride being the fierce fire and burning being a vigorous expression for anguish, or possibly for destruction. The ambiguous next clause may either have "the wicked" or "the poor" for its subject. If the former (R.V), it is a prayer that the retribution which has been already spoken of in Psalms 9 may fall, but the context rather suggests the other construction, carrying on the description of the sufferings of the poor, with an easy change to the plural, since the singular is a collective. This, then, being how things stand, the natural flow of thought would be the continuance of the prayer; but the reference to the enemy sets the psalmist on fire, and he "burns" in another fashion, flaming out into a passionate portraiture of the wicked, which is marked as an interruption to the current of his song by the cessation of the acrostic arrangement.
The picture is drawn with extraordinary energy, and describes first the character (Psa_10:3-6) and then the conduct of the wicked. The style reflects the vehemence of the psalmists abhorrence, being full of gnarled phrases and harsh constructions. As with a merciless scalpel the inner heart of the man is laid open. Observe the recurrence of "saith," "thoughts," and "saith in his heart." But first comes a feature of character which is open and palpable. He "boasts of his souls desire." What is especially flagrant in that? The usual explanation is that he is not ashamed of his shameful lusts, but glories in them, or that he boasts of succeeding in all that he desires. But what will a good man do with his hearts desires? Psa_10:17 tells us, namely breathe them to God; and therefore to boast of them instead is the outward expression of godless self-confidence and resolve to consult inclination and not God. The word rendered boast has the two significations of pray and boast, and the use of it here, in the worse one, is parallel with the use of bless or renounce in the next clause. The wicked is also "rapacious," for "covetous" is too weak. He grasps all that he can reach by fair or foul means. Such a man in effect and by his very selfish greed "renounces, contemns God." He may be a worshipper; but his "blessing" is like a parting salutation, dismissing Him to whom it is addressed. There is no need to suppose that conscious apostacy is meant. Rather the psalmist is laying bare the under meaning of the earth-bound mans life, and in effect anticipates Christs "Ye cannot serve God and mammon" and Pauls "covetousness which is idolatry."
The next trait of character is practical atheism and denial of Divine retribution. The Hebrew is rough and elliptical, but the A.V misses its point, which the R.V gives by the introduction of "saith." "The pride of his countenance" is literally "the elevation of his nose." Translate those upturned nostrils into words, and they mean that God will not require (seek, in the sense of punish). But a God who does not punish is a dim shape, through which the empty sky is seen, and the denial (or forgetfulness) of Gods retributive judgment is equivalent to denying that there is a God at all.
Thus armed, the wicked is in fancied security. "His ways are firm"-i.e., he prospers-and, in the very madness of arrogance, he scoffs at Gods judgments as too high up to be seen. His scoff is a truth, for how can eyes glued to earth see the solemn lights that move in the heavens? Purblind men say, We do not see them, and mean, They are not; but all that their speech proves is their own blindness. Defiant of God, he is truculent to men, and "snorts contempt at his enemies." "In his heart he says, I shall not be moved." The same words express the sane confidence of the devout soul and the foolish presumption of the man of the earth; but the one says, "because He is at my right hand," and the other trusts in himself. "To all generations I shall not be in adversity" (R.V). The Hebrew is gnarled and obscure; and attempts to amend the text have been made (compare Cheyne, Gratz in loc.), but needlessly. The confidence has become almost insane, and has lost sight altogether of the brevity of life. "His inward thought is that he shall continue forever". {Psalms 49} "Pride stifles reason. The language of the heart cannot be translated into spoken words without seeming exaggeration" (Cheyne). He who can be so blind to facts as to find no God may well carry his blindness a step further and wink hard enough to see no death, or may live as if he did not.
Following the disclosure of the inner springs of life in the secret thoughts comes, in Psa_10:7-10, the outcome of these in word and deed. When the wicked "lets the rank tongue blossom into speech," the product is affronts to God and maledictions, lies, mischiefs, for men. These stuff the mouth full, and lie under the tongue as sweet morsels for the perverted taste or as stored there, ready to be shot out. The deeds match the words. The vivid picture of a prowling lion seems to begin in Psa_10:8, though it is sometimes taken as the unmetaphorical description of the wicked mans crime. The stealthy couching of the beast of prey, hiding among the cover round the unwalled village or poorly sheltered fold, the eyes gleaming out of the darkness and steadfastly fixed on the victim with a baleful light in them, belong to the figure, which is abruptly changed in one clause {Psa_10:9 c} into that of a hunter with his net, and then is resumed and completed in Psa_10:10, where the R.V is, on the whole, to be preferred-"He croucheth; he boweth down"-as resuming the figure at the point where it had been interrupted and finishing it in the next clause, with the helpless victim fallen into the grip of the strong claws. With great emphasis the picture is rounded off {Psa_10:11} with the repetition of the secret thought of Gods forgetfulness, which underlies the cruel oppression.
This whole section indicates a lawless condition in which open violence, robbery, and murder were common. In Hoseas vigorous language, "blood touched blood," the splashes being so numerous that they met, and the land was red with them. There is no reason to suppose that the picture is ideal or exaggerated. Where in the turbulent annals of Israel it is to be placed must remain uncertain; but that it is a transcript of bitter experience is obvious, and the aspect which it presents should be kept in view as a corrective of the tendency to idealise the moral condition of Israel, which at no time was free from dark stains, and which offered only too many epochs of disorganisation in which the dark picture of the psalm could have been photographed from life.
The phrases for the victims in this section are noteworthy: "the innocent"; "the helpless"; "the poor." Of these the first and last are frequent, and the meaning obvious. There is a doubt whether the last should be regarded as the designation of outward condition or of disposition, i.e. whether "meek" or "poor" is the idea. There are two cognate words in Hebrew, one of which means one who is bowed down, i.e. by outward troubles, and the other one who bows himself down, i.e. is meek. The margin of the Hebrew Bible is fond of correcting these words when they occur in the text and substituting the one for the other, but arbitrarily; and it is doubtful whether in actual usage there is any real distinction between them. "Helpless" is a word only found in this psalm (Psa_10:8, Psa_10:10, Psa_10:14), which has received various explanations, but is probably derived from a root meaning to be black, and hence comes to mean miserable, hapless, or the like. All the designations refer to a class-namely, the devout minority, the true Israel within Israel-and hence the plurals in Psa_10:10, Psa_10:12, and Psa_10:17.
The second part of the psalm (Psa_10:12-18) is the prayer, forced from the heart of the persecuted remnant, Gods little flock in the midst of wolves. No trace of individual reference appears in it, nor any breath of passion or vengeance, such as is found in some of the psalms of persecution; but it glows with indignation at the blasphemies which are, for the moment, triumphant, and cries aloud to God for a judicial act which shall shatter the dream that He does not see and will not requite. That impious boast, far more than the personal incidence of sufferings, moves the prayer. As regards its form, the reappearance of the acrostic arrangement is significant, as is the repetition of the prayer and letter of Psa_9:19, which binds the two psalms together. The acrostic reappears with the direct address to God. The seven verses of the prayer are divided by, it into four groups, one of which is abnormal as containing but one verse, the unusual length of which, however, somewhat compensates for the irregularity (Psa_10:14). The progress of thought in them follows the logic of emotional prayer rather than of the understanding. First, there are a vehement cry for Gods intervention and a complaint of His mysterious apparent apathy. The familiar figure for the Divine flashing forth of judgment, Arise, O Lord, is intensified by the other cry that He would "lift His hand." A God who has risen from His restful throne and raised His arm is ready to bring it down with a shattering blow; but before it falls the psalmist spreads in Gods sight the lies of the scornful men. They had said (Psa_10:11) that He forgot; the prayer pleads that He would not forget. Their confidence was that He did not see nor would requite; the psalmist is bold to ask the reason for the apparent facts which permit such a thought. The deepest reverence will question God in a fashion which would be daring, if it were not instinct with the assurance of the clearness of His Divine knowledge of evil and of the worthiness of the reasons for its impunity. "Wherefore doest Thou thus?" may be insolence or faith. Next, the prayer centres itself on the facts of faith, which sense does not grasp (Psa_10:14). The specific acts of oppression which force out the psalmists cry are certainly "seen" by God, for it is His very nature to look on all such ("Thou" in Psa_10:14 is emphatic); and faith argues from the character to the acts of God and from the general relation of all sin towards Him to that which at present afflicts the meek. But is Gods gaze on the evil an idle look? No; he sees, and the sight moves Him to act. Such is the force of "to take it into Thy hand," which expresses the purpose and issue of the beholding. What He sees He "takes in hand," as we say, with a similar colloquialism. If a man believes these things about God, it will follow of course that he will leave himself in Gods hand, that uplifted hand which prayer has moved. So Psa_10:14 is like a great picture in two compartments, as Raphaels Transfiguration. Above is God, risen with lifted arm, beholding and ready to strike; beneath is the helpless man, appealing to God by the very act of "leaving" himself to Him. That absolute reliance has an all-prevalent voice which reaches the Divine heart, as surely as her childs wail the mothers: and wherever it is exercised the truth of faith which the past has established becomes a truth of experience freshly confirmed. The form of the sentence in the Hebrew (the substantive verb with a participle, "Thou hast been helping") gives prominence to the continuousness of the action: It has always been Thy way, and it is so still. Of course "fatherless" here is tantamount to the "hapless," or poor, of the rest of the psalm.
Then at last comes the cry for the descent of Gods uplifted hand (Psa_10:15-16). It is not invoked to destroy, but simply to "break the arm" of the wicked, i.e., to make him powerless for mischief, as a swordsman with a shattered arm is one blow from Gods hand lames, and the arm hangs useless. The impious denial of the Divine retribution still affects the psalmist with horror; and he returns to it in the second clause of Psa_10:15 : in which he prays that God would "seek out"-i.e., require and requite, so as to abolish, and make utterly nonexistent-the wicked mans wickedness. The yearning of every heart that beats in sympathy with and devotion to God, especially when it is tortured by evil experienced or beheld flourishing unsmitten, is for its annihilation. There is no prayer here for the destruction of the doer; but the reduction to nothingness of his evil is the worthy aspiration of all the good, and they who have no sympathy with such a cry as this have either small experience of evil, or a feeble realisation of its character.
The psalmist was heartened to pray his prayer, because "the nations are perished out of His land." Does that point back to the great instance of exterminating justice in the destruction of the Canaanites? It may do so, but it is rather to be taken as referring to the victories celebrated in the companion psalm. Note the recurrence of the words "nations" and "perished," which are drawn from it. The connection between the two psalms is thus witnessed, and the deliverance from foreign enemies, which is the theme of Psalms 9, is urged as a plea with God and taken as a ground of confidence by the psalmist himself for the completion of the deliverance by making domestic oppressors powerless. This lofty height of faith is preserved in the closing stanza, in which the agitation of the first part and the yearning of the second are calmed into serene assurance that the Ecclesia pressa has not cried nor ever can cry in vain. Into the praying, trusting heart "the peace of God, which passeth understanding," steals, and the answer is certified to faith long before it is manifest to sense. To pray and immediately to feel the thrilling consciousness, "Thou hast heard," is given to those who pray in faith. The wicked makes a boast of his "desire"; the humble makes a prayer of it, and so has it fulfilled. Desires which can be translated into petitions will be converted into fruition. If the heart is humble, that Divine breath will be breathed over and into it which will prepare it to desire only what accords with Gods will, and the prepared heart will always find Gods ear open. The cry of the hapless, which has been put into their lips by God Himself, is the appointed prerequisite of the manifestations of Divine judgment which will relieve the earth of the incubus of "the man of the earth." "Shall not God avenge His own elect, though He bear long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily." The prayer of the humble, like a whisper amid the avalanches, has power to start the swift, white destruction on its downward path; and when once that gliding mass has way on it, nothing which it smites can stand.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 “This psalm seems to belong to the time of…
INTRODUCTION
“This psalm seems to belong to the time of the Captivity, or the return of the captives. It was probably made in reference to Sanballat, and the other enemies of the Jews. There is a great similarity between this and the 12th, the 14th, the 35th, and the 53d. In these, as Calmet remarks, we find the same complaints, the same sentiments, and almost the same expressions.”—Dr. A. Clarke.
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SOUL PERPLEXITY
(Psa_10:1-2.)
I. The problem.
“Why standest Thou afar off, O Lord?” &c., i.e., “like an idle, passive spectator, unconcerned at the misery which he sees, but refuses to relieve.”—Perowne. “The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor.” “Through the proud dealings of the wicked, their victims are placed in the fire or furnace of affliction.”—Perowne. “Through the pride of the wicked the afflicted man burns.”—Moll. The soul is sorely puzzled with this painful problem, and asks earnestly, Why is it thus? Let it be observed, this is not—
(1.) A presumptuous question. “The meaning is not that of searching for the reason.”—Moll. There is no disposition to know the secret things which belong unto the Lord.
(2.) Not a murmuring question. “In the anguish of external trouble and internal affliction, the pious may, with propriety, urge God to hasten to their relief; but although the voice of their lamentation may resound, yet it must not contain a complaint against God, as if He improperly delayed, or as if He left the afflicted in continual danger without reason, or as if He had purposely shut His eyes and ears against their need and prayers. In the realisation of their weakness, they must give themselves and their cause entirely into the hands of God.”—Moll. Neither is it,
(3.) A despairing question. “The good soul knows that God waiteth to be gracious; and as He seldom cometh at our time, so at His own (which is ever the best) time, He never faileth.”—Trapp. It is a lover’s question; it is the cry of a righteous man, impatient that justice should be done; but it is a question nevertheless which bespeaks the deep sorrow and perplexity of the religious soul. A little child cried in the night, and the parent came to correct it; said the little thing, “Whip me, but don’t leave me.” Thus, the bitterest trial of the saints is the consciousness of God’s absence.
II. The solution.
The explanation of the problem may be found:
1. Partly in regard to our personal discipline.
(1.) It rebukes our faults In these hours of sorrow, we remember our faults.
(2.) It reminds us of our personal helplessness. We never know the preciousness of our friends until we have lost them; and it seems necessary that our greatest Friend should withdraw His presence sometimes, so that we may realise His preciousness more fully, and know how helpless we are without Him.
(3.) It drives us nearer to God.
2. Partly in respect to the salvation of the wicked. God delays to do justice that the wicked may have space for repentance. It may be that the wicked abuse these delays, put upon them a wrong interpretation, but God grants the longer delay, that the sinner may turn and live. Thus, if the righteous suffer because Heaven delays its judgments, let them not complain. Let them regard their sufferings on this account as vicarious suffering, as identifying them with their thorn-crowned Master, who was bruised for our iniquities, and by whose stripes we are healed. God is sublimely patient, bearing with sinners, and suffering whilst He bears; let us imitate His long-suffering, and not complain at the delays of justice, because such delays are in the interests of mercy and salvation.
3. Certainly, in regard to the glory of God. God will not dishonour Himself by hiding Himself; when all things are seen clearly, the Divine attributes will shine all the brighter for these obscurations. Each explained mystery will be a crown on God’s head; not one of them a blot on God’s throne. The throne at last will be “A great white throne” (Rev_15:3-4).
PRACTICAL ATHEISM
(Psa_10:3-14.)
We have here a full-length portrait of the practical atheist. The Psalmist is not speaking of the theoretical atheist, not of the man who ignores God with his lips, but who ignores Him in his life.
Let us mark:
I. The nature of this atheism.
1. The atheism here spoken of ignores God in actual life (Psa_10:4). “God is not in all his thoughts.” “THERE IS NO GOD: not that he is literally an atheist, but that the whole of his conduct, all his purposes and schemes, are carried on as if there were no God—in a practical denial of His existence.”—Perowne. “David does not speak of the words, but of the innermost thoughts, of the wicked—their practical, it may be half-conscious atheism.”—Speaker’s Com. How much of this secret atheism there is in the world! How often in the bed-chamber of the heart do men curse the King! How continually do men acknowledge God, and yet in their conduct deny Him! The Chinese acknowledge no God in their creed, and yet their houses and shops and streets are full of idols. The reverse of this is seen in Christendom; our creed is full of God, and then we shut Him out from our shops, homes, hearts.
2. The atheism here spoken of excludes God from systems of thought. “No God, is the whole of his philosophy” (Psa_10:4).—Horsley. Such are intended as those who
(1.) Acknowledge that God is, but that He cannot be known, putting God at a vast and inaccessible distance;
(2.) Those who contend that we cannot affirm or deny God’s existence,
(3.) Those who deny a personal God. “To deny the existence of a living, acting, all-punishing (in one word, a personal) God, is equivalent to denying the existence of any real and true God whatever.”—Ewald. Psa_10:11. “The thought of a personal God would disturb the ungodly in his doings, he therefore prefers to deny His existence, and thinks there is only fate, and fate is blind, only an absolute, and it has no eyes, only a notion, and that cannot interfere in the affairs of men.”—Delitzsch.
We notice:
II. The history of this atheism.
This atheism is here shown to spring from the pride and corruption of the heart.
1. In the second verse the atheist is shown to be personally corrupt.
2. Next, he glories in his corruption. “For the wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire” (Psa_10:3). “He giveth praise to his heart’s desire.”—Perowne. “To his soul’s lust.”—Kay. “He blesses and idolises himself; he sings hallelujahs to himself, and forgets God.”—Wordsworth. “This seems to be a description of the last stage of corruption, in which men openly defend or applaud their own vices.”—Alexander.
3. The wicked man not only glories in his own shame, but has pleasure in those who do such things. “He blesseth the covetous.”
Out of this rampant wickedness comes—
(1.) The hatred of God. “He abhorreth the Lord.” When we have wronged any one, the next thing is we hate them.
(2.) The ignoring of God (Psa_10:4). “He is so wrapped up in his rapacious propensities that he forsakes and altogether despises God.”—Phillips. Here we have the devil’s chain. Each several link is manifest of that awful fetter with which the devil binds his victims ere he casts them into hell. Many of our sceptics give atheism a very proud lineage; its ancestors are thought, logic, love, and righteousness; God’s Word declares atheism to be the monstrous child of corruption. Yes; atheism springs not from a clear head, but a disordered heart; it is not the characteristic of a pure and simple age, but of a civilisation debauched with luxuries, and mad with pride.
III. The characteristics of it.
1. Pride (Psa_10:4). “Through the pride of his countenance.” “The wicked in the height of his scorn.”—Speaker’s Com. Psa_10:5. “His ways are always victorious.”—Ewald. Job_12:6. His ways always prosper, and he is full of pride. “They judgments,’ &c. God’s judgments, His punishments for sin, are so far out of the sight of the wicked that he acts as if they could never reach him.”—Perowne. “As for all his enemies,” &c. He cares as little for man as he does for God.
2. Presumption (Psa_10:6). “In his unbounded carnal security he lets his wicked tongue have free course.”—Delitzsch. “The idea of the wicked is that they and their families would continue to be prosperous, that a permanent foundation was laid for honour and success, and for transmitting accumulated wealth and honours down to far-distant times.”—Barnes. For ever and ever they shall flourish.
3. Practical and outrageous wickedness. Blasphemy, falsehood, injustice, cruelty, murder. When you have ignored God, and denied His intervention in the affairs of men, you have opened the flood-gates of iniquity.
IV. The doom of it.
Psa_10:12, &c. God marks and punishes this atheism, and what springs out of it. In the 11th verse the wicked say: “God hath forgotten,” &c. But, says the Psalmist in the 14th verse: “Thou hast seen it, to requite it.” “There is a time coming, he feels assured, when all this disorder will be set right. God is not the passive spectator of human affairs which these men deem Him. He ‘considers’ (i.e., regards with interest and sympathy) what is going on. The helpless, therefore, may leave all to God.”—Perowne. And woe unto the godless (Psa_10:15-16). “Let the wicked and his wickedness disappear, so that even when sought for it cannot be found.”—Perowne.
BLACK ARTS
(Psa_10:7-18.)
A missionary who recently returned from Polynesia brought home with him a curious object called a soul-trap. This consisted simply of a series of rings twisted in cocoa-nut fibre. If a native should commit a great offence, or have the misfortune to offend a sorcerer, the latter immediately proceeds to make a new ring in his chain, so as to form a trap to catch the poor man’s spirit. Soon a bird or butterfly alights on the ring, and the sorcerer asserts that the soul of the culprit assuming this form has passed into the trap. It is immediately known throughout the tribe that a certain man has lost his soul. As a matter of fact, it invariably happens that the soulless man shortly afterwards dies, of course through sheer mental distress at having had his soul thus entrapped. We smile at such traps, but we are all familiar with soul-traps of a far more subtle and dangerous character. In the verses before us the Psalmist vividly pictures the crafty schemes of the wicked in order to entrap their victims. They seek by most subtle arts to entangle and destroy.
I. It is thus that selfish men set traps for the young and inexperienced.
With lies and enticements the covetous seek to entrap and destroy the young. Soul-traps for the young! How numerous they are! How cleverly contrived! The utmost artifice and plausibility. How successful they are (Psa_10:10). “Crouching down as low as possible, he lies on the watch, and the feeble and defenceless fall into his strong ones, i.e., claws.”—Delitzsch. How many thus fall! Our cities are full of fallen young men and women. We have thousands of heartless men in society answering to the vile robber pictured in these verses. For the sake of gain and lust, they set traps in which the health, honour, happiness, and hope of the youthful perish. The whole civilised world was shocked the other day by the discovery that, by means of an infernal machine, a villain sent ships and their crews to the bottom of the sea for the sake of the insurance money; but thousands of atheistical, covetous men, for the sake of gain, are ingeniously seeking to sink the souls of the people in the gulf of hell. May God save our young people from their cruel schemes!
II. It is thus that the world contrives traps for the godly.
The world does not like the godly, and in various subtle methods it seeks to worst them. It has traps for their reputation. “His mouth is full of perjury and deceit.” He sets a net of cunningly-devised speech, that he may be able to bring their good name into discredit. It has traps for their fortune. It will “privily seek” to damage their circumstances. It will adroitly circulate reports, frame laws, to bring them into financial trouble. It has traps for their character. They know the natural weaknesses of a Christian, and they bait their hook, set their net, accordingly. He is short-tempered, and they contrive to put in his way occasions of anger; he is given to levity, and they provoke his mirth; he has strong appetites, and they put drink to his lips; he is feeble in faith, and they press him with scepticisms. The world hates the righteous, and when it cannot injure them openly, it will secretly. The devil is a wily destroyer, and his children imitate his tactics, and seek “to murder the innocent.”
III. It is thus that Satan sets traps for us all.
He is the great bandit pictured in the text; he is the great sorcerer whose soul-traps beset us at every turn. What a clever fowler is he! what a politic huntsman! what a subtle angler! The devil hides himself, he disguises his movements, and in an evil hour men are drawn “into the net.” Here he betrays by pleasure. Bates tells us of a spider in South America which looks like a blossom, and insects alighting on it for sweetness find death. So the great foe, under the aspect of pleasure, betrays thousands. Here he betrays by honour. One of the Roman Emperors used to fish with a net of purple and gold; the devil has used this net largely, and taken great prey. And by many other devices does he destroy the unwary. Beware! That was a clumsy soul-trap in Polynesia, but the sorcerer of hell has traps of strange power—of damning efficacy. Beware of those soul-traps made of flowers called pleasure; of those purple-lined ones called greatness; of those gay-painted ones called fashion; of those scientific ones called philosophy; of those jewelled ones called honour; of those golden ones called wealth. “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” The devil will lie, fawn, flatter, and do this patiently for years to ruin us.
1. Let the innocent put their trust in God. “The afflicted committeth himself unto Thee; Thou art the helper of the fatherless” (Psa_10:14). Alas! for us if we attempt to stand in our own strength, and take our defence into our own hands. “He that takes himself out of God’s hands into his own, by and by will not know what to do with himself.”—Whichcote. And in our darkest hours of temptation and trial, we may have the fullest assurance that God has not forgotten us. The wicked say: “God will never see it” (Psa_10:11). But the Psalmist replies: “Thou hast seen it; for Thou beholdeth mischief and spite to requite it with Thy hand” (Psa_10:14). “The Psalmist means to say, so far from the assertion of the wicked man being true, that God is forgetful of the poor; He is, on the contrary, observant of their trouble and vexation; and in order not to forget their calamities, He places a memorial of them on His hands (see Isa_49:26). I have engraven thee on the palms of My hands; which would be done for the purpose of assisting the memory.”—Phillips. God has not forgotten His tried ones who look to Him; He will not forget them. “The Lord preserveth the simple.”
“As far from danger as from fear,
Whilst Love, Almighty Love, is near.”
2. Let the innocent walk circumspectly. “Lurking places,” “secret places,” “eyes privily set,” “lieth in wait secretly.” “He croucheth.” “The image is that of a beast of prey, a fox or a wolf, lying upon the watch about the farm-yard in the evening.”—Horsley. This great enemy is ever on the watch for us in the world. Ambushed often where least expected. And in the Church. The wolf prowls about Christ’s fold. Let us
(1.) Live in the spirit of watchfulness.
(2.) Let us be specially on our guard against what promises unusual gain, or liberty, or pleasure. The angler makes his artificial fly as big, and fat, and dazzling as he can, and the devil acts thus with the bait which he dangles before human souls.
(3.) Let us keep as far from danger as we possibly can. They try sometimes how near they can swim to the Niagara falls without going over—it is not wise. God will keep us, if we strive thus to keep ourselves.
3. Let any who are in the snare of the devil look up to the Deliverer. It is best to keep out of Satan’s claws, but Christ can deliver us from the paw of the lion and the mouth of the bear. In the devil’s trap, held by the iron teeth of evil, stained with blood and tears, look up, and Mercy’s hand shall liberate you, and you shall sing: “My soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler; the snare is broken, and I have escaped.”
4. Let the wicked be assured that God’s eye is upon them, and that justice must overtake them (Psa_10:15). “Because the Lord continues to spare them, therefore they go on to provoke Him. As He adds to their lives, so they add to their lusts. Because justice seems to wink, men suppose her blind; because she delays punishment, they imagine she denies to punish them; because she does not always reprove them for their sins, they suppose she always approves of their sins. But let such know that the silent arrow can destroy as well as the roaring cannon. Though the patience of God be lasting, yet it is not everlasting.”—Spurgeon.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Psa 10:17-18
Psa 10:17-18
The Psalter contains two main ideas: the defeat of God’s enemies, yet the suffering of God’s people.
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I. When we sing the Psalms, we triumph in the Church’s exultation over the might of this world. (We find triumph expressed in Psalm xxvi., Psalm xlvii., Psalm lxxxii., etc.)
II. Notice the other aspect of the Christian kingdom, which is much more frequently brought before us in the Psalms: the suffering, troublous state which in this world naturally befalls an empire so large, so aggressive, so engrossing, so stately and commanding, yet so destitute of weapons of earth. It provokes persecution at all times, both from its claims and from its weakness. (1) Thus then we cry out to God against our enemies (Psa 27:2-3, Psa 27:13, etc.). (2) We lay before Almighty God our desolations (Psa 44:12-13). (3) We complain of our captivity (Psa 14:7). (4) The Psalms say much concerning the poor and needy, and God’s protecting them against bad men (Psa 9:9-19). (5) The Psalms speak especially of the righteous being in trouble, plead for them, and wait for their deliverance (Psa 34:17, etc.).
III. Now here it is easy to make this objection: we are not in persecution; for us to use the language of the Psalms is l unreal. But many answers may be made to this objection. (1) It is not necessary that all parts of the Church should be in persecution at once either to fulfil the Scripture statements, or to justify the use of the Psalms. If we are members of the body of Christ, we must feel for the rest, in whatever part of the world they are, when they are persecuted, and must remember them in our prayers. (2) In spite of her prosperity for the moment, even in this country the Church of Christ is in peril, as is obvious. Is there no battle between the Church and the world in this country, and no malevolence, no scorn, no unbelief, no calumny, no prospect, or at least materials, of open persecution, though persecution, through God’s mercy, as yet be away? (3) If we are not altogether in a position to use the words of the Psalter, is it not possible that so far we really do lack a note of the Church? is there not a fear lest the world be friends with us, because we are friends with the world? Let us but put off the love of the world, and follow the precepts of our Lord and His Apostles, and then see in a little while where we should all find ourselves, and what would be the condition of the Church.
J. H. Newman, Sermons on Subjects of the Day, p. 256.
Reference: Psalm 10—I. Williams, The Psalms Interpreted of Christ, p. 212.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 The wicked one, and the deliverance.
The wicked one, and the deliverance.
Psa 10:1-18.
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The tenth psalm, linked too closely with the ninth to have any separate title, is occupied largely with the description of the wicked one, as we have seen; and this is the cause of a gap in the alphabetic arrangement, six letters (from Mem to Tzaddi) being absent. Delitzsch would find, however, six strophes standing here to represent them, but the numerical division is into five parts, which are very unequal. The larger divisions are three: it is in fact a sort of resurrection psalm.
1. The first division gives us only the cry to Jehovah with the cause of the cry, this being the persecution of the humble by the wicked one. "Why standest Thou afar off, Jehovah? [why] hidest Thou Thyself in seasons of strait?" The previous psalm had declared God to be a stronghold in just such seasons (verse 9). Why such dissimilarity between the faith and the experience? But in truth faith in no wise rests upon experience here, but confesses that, as to His government, clouds and darkness may be round about Him. True, at last experience will come round to faith, and the exercise meanwhile be found needed and helpful. But faith is in the invisible, -sees Him indeed who is so, -has its ground, its arguments, is not credulity, but has sure evidence, all its own.
2. (a) Now we have the picture of the wicked one, the enemy of God and man. Pride and lust characterize him, the tokens of a soul out of the presence of God, but here in distinct and awful rejection of Him. He boasts of his soul’s desire, -of having his own way; pursuing it, he refuses all the check of Jehovah’s will; he renounces, he scorns Him, is in entire independence: like a "wandering star", he is bound to no orbit, by that very fact indeed showing himself to be in earth-bonds that he knows not, a meteor to he quenched in darkness; safety and permanency are only in the orbit.
He is not only independent of God, he denies Him; but he denies Him in the interest of his own lawless acts. "He will not search out," he says. His plottings, the weaving together of his purposes, are atheistic therefore. His pride and his lusts mutually support each other.
(b) Security is the natural outcome of his pride: God’s judgments are out of his sight altogether. If faith has to own often that clouds and darkness are about Him, it is in no wise strange that he should refuse all cognizance of One thus removed out of all natural ken. Nay, if God acts most clearly, the very fact that He makes all things serve Him in it still conceals Him amid the multiplicity of instruments. Then the scale in which God weighs things is too spiritual; the balances are "balances of the sanctuary": a careless and callous conscience cannot appreciate them; the handwriting on the wall needs an interpreter, and who knows if it were correctly given?
He knows not God then, and he derides men: "all his adversaries, he puffeth at them." These things do not always go together: it does not follow that he who has emancipated himself from the restraint of conscience is necessarily free from the fear of man. Man is more intelligible, and yet not always more calculable; he is as to tangibility nearer; and the mystery of one’s own heart is dark enough to threaten one with the likeness of other hearts to ours. And yet over this also pride can lift the heart; and it is so here. Nay, he of whom this is spoken can look on indefinitely to the future as one not to be subject to the ills that afflict other men, -"from generation to generation one in no calamity."
(c) Being thus secure, all that is in his heart comes out: "out of the heart the mouth speaketh"; and "his mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression." What is "under his tongue," hidden, and yet ready to show itself, is "trouble" for others, "and vanity" in itself. A short description, indeed, but an effective one. If God be displaced it is to make room for man; and what is the man, then, for whom this is to make room?
(d) So we have now his ways, -a monotony of wickedness which the psalmist, seeking to describe, can only do so by repeating himself in various ways. The figure is that of a wild beast and a beast of prey, -human so far only as there is with it the cunning and forecast of the hunter. Man without God is only such a beast; the spiritual part sunk into the animal only giving to it preternatural potency for evil. This process of degradation a Nebuchadnezzar is witness to; while in the prophet’s vision, the imperial powers following him inherit his shame: they are but "four wild beasts."
Even the numerical structure seems in the minor sections to fall through here, which, considering that the alphabetic has already done so, and yet with design, may make us realize design here also, -the three verses manifesting what is yet a nameless horror, like the fourth of the imperial beasts in Daniel’s vision. (Dan 7:1-28.)
(e) One closing comment takes us back to his attitude toward the divine government, which yet has its hold upon him: "he hath said in his heart, The Mighty hath forgotten: He hideth His face; He hath never seen it."
3. (a) The alphabet is resumed with Koph, and now continues to the end. Let us notice that this letter is 100 in numerical value, the years of Abraham’s life before the promise is fulfilled, and to one "as good as dead" Isaac is born. So now it is time for God to arise and act: this consummation of denial and defiance is the index-hand which points to the last possible limit of divine long-suffering. The living God must show Himself. The Mighty One must put forth might. The suffering of the righteous calls for it; and so does the cool contempt of the wicked. Patience will be no longer forbearance, but the aggravation of the evil.
(b) Faith holds confidently yet to an All-seeing One, interested as He is observant, sure to interfere. The wretched one, plunged in affliction, yet abandons himself to Him, who has proved Himself the helper of those destitute of natural help. The height of the evil is but the supreme necessity which God must respond to, and with which He directly charges Himself. With all help beside cut off, is not the soul in this condition just this "orphan" to whom He is pledged?
(c) Then with the cry comes the flash of recognition: "Break Thou the arm of the wicked and the evil one! Thou shalt seek out his wickedness till there is no more to find." And then the glorious accomplishment seems before the sight: "Jehovah is King for ever and aye: the nations are perished out of His land." Purgation is effected, the evil is cast out; the intrusive presence of the nations in the land that is Jehovah’s land is found no more. It is only faith still that realizes this, but it is realized. Faith can be as sure as if the thing were done, and while there may be for it at times the struggle upwards through the mists of the valley, there are also the clear air of the mountain-top and the perfect vision.
(d) And the soul goes on strengthened on its way. There is an experience of faith, braced and energized by communion with God, which makes already the path to shine with the glow of far-off skies, and lifts up the feet with energy and purpose. So it is now, as the soul sings: —
"The desire of the humble Thou hast heard, Jehovah: Thou confirmest their heart; Thou causest Thine ear to hearken, to judge the orphan and the oppressed, that frail man of the earth" -whose abode the earth is -may no more alarm." Thus with a strain of joy and confidence the tenth psalm ends.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v6 Psa 10:6. - Psa 16:8. - Psa 30:6.
Psalms
ONE SAYING FROM THREE MEN
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Psa 10:6. - Psa 16:8. - Psa 30:6.
How differently the same things sound when said by different men! Here are three people giving utterance to almost the same sentiment of confidence. A wicked man says it, and it is insane presumption and defiance. A good man says it, having been lulled into false security by easy times, and it is a mistake that needs chastisement. A humble believing soul says it, and it is the expression of a certain and blessed truth. ‘The wicked saith in his heart, I shall not be moved.’ A good man, led astray by his prosperity, said, ‘I shall not be moved,’ and the last of the three put a little clause in which makes all the difference, ‘because He is at my right hand, I shall never be moved.’ So, then, we have the mad arrogance of godless confidence, the mistake of a good man that needs correction, and the warranted confidence of a believing soul.
I. The mad arrogance of godless confidence.
The ‘wicked’ man, in the psalm from which our first text comes, said a good many wrong things ‘in his heart.’ The tacit assumptions on which a life is based, though they may never come to consciousness, and still less to utterance, are the really important things. I dare say this ‘wicked man’ was a good Jew with his lips, and said his prayers all properly, but in his heart he had two working beliefs. One is thus expressed: ‘As for all his enemies, he puffeth at them. He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved.’ The other is put into words thus: ‘He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten, He hideth His face. He will never see it.’
That is to say, the only explanation of a godless life, unless the man is an idiot, is that there lie beneath it, as formative principles and unspoken assumptions, guiding and shaping it, one or both of these two thoughts: either ‘There is no God,’ or ‘He does not care what I do, and I am safe to go on for evermore in the present fashion.’ It might seem as if a man with the facts of human life before him, could not, even in the insanest arrogance, say, ‘I shall not be moved, for I shall never be in adversity.’ But we have an awful power-and the fact that we exercise, and choose to exercise, it is one of the strange riddles of our enigmatical existence and characters-of ignoring unwelcome facts, and going cheerily on as though we had annihilated them, because we do not reflect upon them. So this man, in the midst of a world in which there is no stay, and whilst he saw all round him the most startling and tragical instances of sudden change and complete collapse, stands quietly and says, ‘Ah! I shall never be moved’; ‘God doth not require it.’
That absurdity is the basis of every life that is not a life of consecration and devotion-so far as it has a basis of conviction at all. The ‘wicked’ man’s true faith is this, absurd as it may sound when you drag it out into clear, distinct utterance, whatever may be his professions. I wonder if there are any of us whose life can only be acquitted of being utterly unreasonable and ridiculous by the assumption, ‘I shall never be moved’?
Have you a lease of your goods? Do you think you are tenants at will or owners? Which? Is there any reason why any of us should escape, as some of us live as if we believed we should escape, the certain fate of all others? If there is not, what about the sanity of the man whose whole life is built upon a blunder? He is convicted of the grossest folly, unless he be assured that either there is no God, or that He does not care one rush about what we do, and that consequently we are certain of a continuance in our present state.
Do you say in your heart, ‘I shall never be moved’? Then you must be strong enough to resist every tempest that beats against you. Is that so? ‘I shall never be moved’-then nothing that contributes to your well-being will ever slip from your grasp, but you will be able to hold it tight. Is that so? ‘I shall never be moved’-then there is no grave waiting for you. Is that so? Unless these three assumptions be warranted, every godless man is making a hideous blunder, and his character is the sentence pronounced by the loving lips of Incarnate Truth on the rich man who thought that he had ‘much goods laid up for many years,’ and had only to be merry-’Thou fool! Thou fool!’ If an engineer builds a bridge across a river without due calculation of the force of the winds that blow down the gorge, the bridge will be at the bottom of the stream some stormy night, and the train piled on the fragments of it in hideous ruin. And with equal certainty the end of the first utterer of this speech can be calculated, and is foretold in the psalm, ‘The Lord is King for ever and ever. . . . The godless are perished out of the land.’
II. We have in our second text the mistake of a good man who has been lulled into false confidence.
The Psalmist admits his error by the acknowledgment that he spoke ‘in my prosperity’; or, as the word might be rendered, ‘in my security.’ This suggests to us the mistake into which even good men, lulled by the quiet continuance of peaceful days, are certain to fall, unless there be continual watchfulness exercised by them.
It is a very significant fact that the word which is translated in our Authorised Version ‘prosperity’ is often rendered ‘security,’ meaning thereby, not safety, but a belief that I am safe. A man who is prosperous, or at ease, is sure to drop into the notion that ‘to-morrow will be as this day, and much more abundant,’ unless he keeps up unslumbering watchfulness against the insidious illusion of permanence. If he yields to the temptation, in his foolish security, forgetting how fragile are its foundations, and what a host of enemies surround him threatening it, then there is nothing for it but that the merciful discipline, which this Psalmist goes on to tell us he had to pass through by reason of his fall, shall be brought to bear upon him. The writer gives us a page of his own autobiography. ‘In my security I said, I shall never be moved.’ ‘Lord! by Thy favour Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong. Thou didst hide Thy face.’ What about the security then? What about ‘I shall never be moved’ then? ‘I was troubled. I cried to Thee, O Lord!’-and then it was all right, his prayer was heard, and he was in ‘security’-that is, safety-far more really when he was ‘troubled’ and sore beset than when he had been, as he fancied, sure of not being moved.
Long peace rusts the cannon, and is apt to make it unfit for war. Our lack of imagination, and our present sense of comfort and well-being, tend to make us fancy that we shall go on for ever in the quiet jog-trot of settled life without any very great calamities or changes. But there was once a village at the bottom of the crater of Vesuvius, and great trees, that had grown undisturbed there for a hundred years, and green pastures, and happy homes and flocks. And then, one day, a rumble and a rush, and what became of the village? It went up in smoke-clouds. The quiescence of the volcano is no sign of its extinction. And as surely as we live, so sure is it that there will come a ‘to-morrow’ to us all which shall not be as this day. No man has any right to calculate upon anything beyond the present moment, and there is no basis whatever, either for the philosophical assertion that the order of nature is fixed, and that therefore there are no miracles, or for the practical translation of the assertion into our daily lives, that we may reasonably expect to go on as we are without changes or calamities. There is no reason capable of being put into logical shape for believing that, because the sun has risen ever since the beginning of things, it will rise to-morrow, for there will come a to-morrow when it will not rise. In like manner, the longest possession of our mercies is no reason for forgetting the precarious tenure on which we hold them all.
So, Christian men and women! let us try to keep vivid that consciousness which is so apt to get dull, that nothing continueth in one stay, and that we shall be moved, as far as the outward life and its circumstances are concerned. If we forget it, we shall need, and we shall get, the loving Fatherly discipline, which my second text tells us followed the false security of this good man. The sea is kept from putrefying by storms. Wine poured from vessel to vessel is purified thereby. It is an old truth and a wholesome one, to be always remembered, ‘because they have no changes therefore they fear not God .’
III. Lastly, we have the same thing said by another man in another key.
‘Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.’ The prelude to the assertion makes all the difference. Here is the warranted confidence of a simple faith.
The man who clasps God’s hand, and has Him standing by his side, as his Ally, his Companion, his Guide, his Defence-that man does not need to fear change. For all the things which convict the arrogant or mistaken confidences of the other men as being insanity or a lapse from faith prove the confidence of the trustful soul to be the very perfection of reason and common sense.
We may be confident of our power to resist anything that can come against us, if He be at our side. The man that stands with his back against an oak-tree is held firm, not because of his own strength, but because of that on which he leans. There is a beautiful story of some heathen convert who said to a missionary’s wife, who had felt faint and asked that she might lean for a space on her stronger arm, ‘If you love me, lean hard.’ That is what God says to us, ‘If you love Me, lean hard.’ And if you do, because He is at your right hand, you will not be moved. It is not insanity; it is not arrogance; it is simple faith, to look our enemies in the eyes, and to feel sure that they cannot touch us, ‘Trust in Jehovah; so shall ye be established.’ Rest on the Lord, and ye shall rest indeed.
In like manner the man who has God at his right hand may be sure of the unalterable continuance of all his proper good. Outward things may come or go, as it pleases Him, but that which makes the life of our life will never depart from us as long as He stands there. And whilst He is there, if only our hearts are knit to Him, we can say, ‘My heart and my flesh faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. I shall not be moved. Though all that can go goes, He abides; and in Him I have all riches.’ Trust not in the uncertainty of outward good, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.
The wicked man was defiantly arrogant, and the forgetful good man was criminally self-confident, when they each said, ‘I shall not be moved.’ We are only taking up the privileges that belong to us if, exercising faith in Him, we venture to say, ‘Take what Thou wilt; leave me Thyself; I have enough.’ And the man who says, ‘Because God is at my right hand, I shall not be moved,’ has the right to anticipate an unbroken continuance of personal being, and an unchanged continuance of the very life of his life. That which breaks off all other lives abruptly is no breach in the continuity, either of the consciousness or of the avocations of a devout man. For, on the other side of the flood, he does what he does on this side, only more perfectly and more continually. ‘He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever,’ and it makes comparatively little difference to him whether his place be on this or on the other side of Jordan. We ‘shall not be moved,’ even when we change our station from earth to heaven, and the sublime fulfilment of the warranted confidence of the trustful soul comes when the ‘to-morrow’ of the skies is as the ‘to-day’ of earth, only ‘much more abundant.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 This Ps. has no title. Its relationship to Psalms…
This Ps. has no title. Its relationship to Psalms 9 has been discussed in intro. to that Ps. It reflects a time of great social disorder, in which wickedness and violence are rampant, and the righteous are sorely oppressed. It falls roughly into two parts. The wrongs which call for redress are described (Psa_10:1-11) and God's interposition is invoked (Psa_10:12-18).
1. God seems to be ignorant of what is taking place, or indifferent to it. The Psalmist, however, does not really believe this, or he would not appeal to God at all.
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2b. RM 'They (the poor) are taken in the devices that they (the wicked) have imagined.'
3. And blesseth the covetous, etc.] RV 'And the covetous renounceth, yea, contemneth the Lord.'
4. Will not seek, etc.] RV 'saith, He (God) will not require it': see Psa_10:13. God is not, etc.] RV 'all his thoughts are, There is no God.'
5. Always grievous] RV 'firm at all times.' He seems to prosper in all his plans. Puffeth] in scorn and contempt.
7. Fraud] RV 'oppression.' Vanity] RV 'iniquity.' Part of this v. is quoted in Rom_3:14 as a description of human depravity in general.
8. The brigand life here described has never been uncommon in Eastern lands, and the picture given is by no mearis metaphorical: see Pro_1:10-18. Poor] RV 'helpless,' RM 'hapless,' a word found only here and in Pro_1:10, Pro_1:14.
10. RM 'And being crushed he (the poor) boweth down, and the helpless fall by his strong ones' (by the wicked man's followers).
11. Cp. Psa_10:1, Psa_10:4. The blindness of God, which the Psalmist knows is only apparent, is what the wicked man really believes in.
14. Thou hast seen it] A direct contradiction of the wicked man's thought in Psa_10:11.
15. Break.. the arm] destroy the power.
16. The faith of the Psalmist here asserts itself. The heathen] RV 'the nations.' The past extermination of the Canaanites, or some repulse of foreign invaders, is regarded as a pledge that God will remove the present troublers of society.
18. The man of the earth] RV 'the man which is of the earth.' The word is again 'frail man.' Foreign enemies and evil-doers at home must alike be made to feel their impotence against God.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Psalm 10
Psalm 10
1. The cry of Jehovah and what causeth it (Psa 10:1-2)
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2. That wicked one (Psa 10:3-11)
3. Prayer for divine Intervention: Faith’s Vision (Psa 10:12-18)
Psa 10:1-2. Here is a renewed cry to Jehovah and why? Because the wicked in his pride persecutes the poor. The wicked is that coming man of sin.
Psa 10:3-11. That persecutor of the saints of God is now prophetically revealed in his arrogant pride, defiance of God and oppression of the poor and needy. Such will be the character of the beast out of the earth, the man of sin and son of perdition (2Th 2:1-17). We shall get other photographs of the same person in other Psalms.
Psa 10:12-18. Significant prayers these. And they will be prayed by that future remnant. Arise--lift up Thy hand--forget not-Thou hast seen it--break Thou the arm of the wicked! And then faith seeth the answer. “The LORD is King forever and ever.” The prayer of the humble has been heard. The man of the earth no more oppresseth.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 12 Prayer against the Enemy of the Church.
Prayer against the Enemy of the Church.
Luther writes in his summary of this psalm: "This is a psalm of prayer which complains about the arch-enemy of the kingdom of Christ, that is, Antichrist, who for the sake of his covetousness and pomp troubles Christendom with both might and guile; he wields both the sword of worldly tyranny over the body and the net of false doctrine over the souls. "
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David Complains of the Outrage of the Wicked
v. 1. Why standest Thou afar off, O Lord? apparently indifferent to the oppression of His people. Why hidest Thou Thyself in times of trouble? both His eyes and His ears being covered, so that He seems to be altogether unconcerned about the misery which comes upon His believers.
v. 2. The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor, rather, "Through the pride of the wicked the afflicted is burning," consumed with the heat of anxiety. Let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined, that is, the believers are taken and harmed by reason of the plots devised by the wicked. There is oppression on every hand and apparently no deliverance for the godly.
v. 3. For the wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire, of the fact that he succeeds in his evil plans, and blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth, that is, he renounces and despises Jehovah, while he praises the defrauder, who makes his gains by craft or force.
v. 4. The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, the fact that he literally carries his nose high, in haughty disdain and contempt of God, will not seek after God; God is not in all his thoughts. Those are his thoughts, that is the way he has figured it out for himself: God does not punish; there is no God! He believes that he can go right ahead with his pride and his trespasses; he tries to make himself believe that there will be no day of reckoning.
v. 5. His ways are always grievous, the manner in which he acts seems to be safe against punishment at all times; Thy judgments are far above out of his sight, out of the range of his vision; wherefore, in the opinion of the wicked, they do not exist. As for all his enemies, he puffeth at them, in an act of sneering contempt, his arrogance causing him to despise both God and men.
v. 6. He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved, he is filled with unlimited pride and security; for I shall never be in adversity, one generation after the other in his family being safe against misfortune, in his opinion, his prosperity, his wealth and honor, safe to far distant times.
v. 7. His mouth is full of cursing, blasphemous reviling and execration, and deceit and fraud, by which he oppresses the godly; under his tongue is mischief and vanity, violence for others and the essence of meanness for himself.
v. 8. He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages, in his nomad encampment, where he could easily waylay unsuspecting travelers; in the secret places, where he believes himself safe from observation, doth he murder the innocent, him who has in no way provoked him, out of mere lust for killing; his eyes are privily set against the poor, watching and planning to bring harm upon the godly sufferer.
v. 9. He lieth in wait secretly, hidden in ambush, as a lion in his den, in the thicket where he has his lair; he lieth in wait to catch the poor, like a hunter taking wild animals in his net; he doth catch the poor, the righteous sufferer, when he draweth him into his net.
v. 10. He croucheth, the description again being that of a beast of prey, and humbleth himself, ducking low, getting ready for the sudden spring, that the poor may fall by his strong ones, his wicked helpers, who also rejoice in iniquity.
v. 11. He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten; He hideth His face; He will never see it. This blasphemous thought is the consolation of the wicked; by it they lull themselves into a false security, stifling the voice of their conscience in order to ply their wicked trade without hindrance.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, 17 General Information:
General Information:
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
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Why, Yahweh, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
The speaker uses these questions to express his distress that God has not helped him. AT: "Yahweh, it seems as though you are far away from me and you hide from me whenever I am in trouble" (See: Rhetorical Question and Metaphor)
schemes
evil plans
the wicked person
This refers to wicked people in general. AT: "wicked people" (See: Generic Noun Phrases)
his deepest desires
The noun "desires" can be expressed with the verb "want. "AT: "the things that he wants very much to do" (See: Abstract Nouns)
the greedy
"greedy people"
translationWords
Yahweh
trouble
arrogant
evil
oppress
bless
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 Ps 10 The lament of 9:13-20 continues in Ps…
Ps 10 The lament of 9:13-20 continues in Ps 10 (see study note on Pss 9–10), but the mood changes from confident assertion to anguished questioning. The psalmist prays for rescue, believing that the Lord, as a just king, takes care of the needy.
10:1 The opening questions set the mood. The Lord does not seem to hear the prayers of his people (22:1, 19; see 2 Kgs 4:27; Isa 1:15).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.